“AND STAY OUT!”

Thump, pomf. A certain Changeling’s body was face-first into good ol’ mud, his stick with the generic hoofkerchief resting just a few steps away from his being. It wasn’t like it hurt at all, in fact, it burned. Not the kind of burn you got after specific coitus with your sexual preference who happened to not tell you of their little problem, no, it was the kind of pain-burn.

“CHRYSALIS-DAMN!” - The ‘ling exclaimed with such conviction it could make a soap opera actor blush from such flattery. The ‘ling, affectionately referred to as-

“FUCK YOU, JAEGER! NO ONE EVER LIKED YOU, ANYWAYS!”

Jaeger.

Lifting his head, which happened to have some sort of obsession with kissing the mud, took a few seconds to achieve the sweet nirvana of plucking his head from the ground, but he nonetheless studied his surroundings. Badlands. Lot’sa canyons, dead grass ‘n stuff, oh hey look more dead grass, his mind pondered lazily as Jaeger disinterestedly glanced around in a left-to-right motion. However, his mental state was in an entirely different dimension at the moment.

“Waitah? I’ll take d’check, now.” Jaeger’s upper-comb accent released itself, sounding like some sort of grease-brain. You may ask, how did he get into this situation? Well, to put it at this very moment, his brain spun from the flank-kicking he had just sustained minutes prior to his eviction. Without much thought, he blinked twice and with such a beautiful brain as his, realized that he was just beaten into hilarity and was casted out because he thought that putting jelly into the Queen’s horseshoes would lighten her mood. Well, it wasn’t on purpose. He dropped his favorite snack and it so happened to land right next to the most important ‘ling in the entire ‘lingdom of ‘lings.

Speaking of which, he had to resume his act with the invisible audience. “Whas d’deal wit’ pegasi food? It ain’t pegasi, and it ain’t food!” Jaeger announced to nobody in particular, his head still swimming in a sea of dazed confusion as he bent his forelegs to get up. The ground was certainly stiff, next to rock-hard, but nothing the battered Changeling couldn’t deal with. Albeit wobbly on prime activation of modules Legs.exe, he still kept consciousness...

Jaeger promptly collapsed onto his chin, FrontLegs.exe failing to run as he groaned, just a hair’s length away from his traveling stick now, he could lick it. To be clear, it wasn’t as if he wasn’t into licking things. It’s just that his legs won’t work, and if they won’t work he can’t get anywhere. Had he actually had the decency to not open his big mouth when he was backed up against a wall, and no, saying “kiss my shiny black flank” isn’t saying sorry or begging for forgiveness. On the other hand, licking things are gross unless it’s-

“Brain, stop dat. We gotta work togevvuh, not ‘gainst one ‘notha, yeah?”

Jaeger once again spoke to no one in particular, looking up towards the sky, or more-so his head. He unfurled his forelegs from their state of abysmal coordination, planting them firmly into the ground as he hoisted himself up, the aforementioned appendages wobbling incessantly. With a grunt and a small tune chirping in his head, as he had just achieved full-blown levels of accomplished disappointment, he took his first step. Okay, a bit wobbly, but he can make it work.

Walking like a dog given shoes and forced to walk on tile, he achieved two steps to walk towards the base of the stick, bending down where his muscles and glorious ‘ling gluts screamed exhaustion the most, he gripped the stick with no indication of even physically grabbing it. In all honesty, he just poked it. You can’t pick up anything doing that, that’s just abysmal in all forms of logic and sense. Didn’t matter, he poked his hoof under it, bending his wrist to wrap around the stick, firmly grasping it.

The task was difficult, having dropped the stick twice, now. “Firmly..” Jaeger whispered, hell-bent on picking it up as a rogue bead of sweat ran down his face. “Grasp..” His mind thrust forward with a head of steam, “it!”

It fell off his hoof. Again.

His nonexistent brows furrowed. “Firmly,” his voice picked up in frustration, “GRASP IT!” The same process as before, except he managed to pick it up and throw it over his shoulder. With this small victory came it's spoils, spoils being a look of smug satisfaction on his face along with him shutting his eyes to revel in his mentally deficient achievements. However, something odd struck him. There was no weight on his left side, or so he thought. He popped open an eye, slowly glancing down only to see no hoof supporting his balance, rather the hoof meant to be in it’s place (yoo-hoo, the left one!) was furled around the stick on the shoulder, rather than supporting the ground for him. Chrysalis-damn you, favoritism.

His wings flared, panic settling in as he released a shrill cry to have all forces of luck to not make him go through the painstaking process of picking himself back up. So panickingly as any sane pony would do with wings, he took to the sky with no cohesion and-or precision of where to go. He flew left, right, to and fro, unintentional barrel spins, screams of being motion sick, and mentions of not even having wings to begin with. It was true, they were shot to hell - the membrane wings having all excuses to not be able to fly, but the frill skin and bone holding them up kicked into overdrive, where it would take an accounted ten flaps to get an inch into the air with how bad they were, they did one-hundred. In a second.

With blurred wings, he continued screaming, going so far as to collide with his traveling stick that was resting on his shoulder, or was, now it was being thrown about in it’s placement wrapped snugly around his hoof, the sack of useless personal items shaking with ferocity, somehow managing to stay in the ill-protected sack even as the wind was beating the everlasting shit out of it. “THIS IS NOT COOL!” Jaeger shrieked, his wings now going into sleep-mode via exhaustion, causing him to start for the ground at a spinning mess. Had he not managed to flare his wings out at the perfect time, he surely would’ve been at some sort of death’s door right about now.

To keep his stallioninity, he shut his eyes and continued screaming, landing softly on the ground, his wings flapping quickly to keep a soft and firm landing. The ground greeted him kindly, if it could actually have thought, even as he continued his panic attack. His eyes fluttered open, his screaming dying to a small hum as realization dawned, his three hooves planted on the ground as his left hoof was curled around the traveling stick. His voice cooed “Oh”s in pleasant surprise as if he was just told that he was going to be given a new blender. Blinking idly, he glanced up to the canyon before him, a sign that his bug-eyes zoomed in on naturally.

DODGE CITY - 50KM - AHEAD

“Convenient, I say.” Jaeger’s ear twitched as he flicked an invisible eyebrow up suspiciously. Completely forgetting about his personal embarrassment approximately thirty seconds ago, he kicked his good hind leg out, stretching it with a tensed yawn. “Twelve hou’ahs. Shoul’ be easy.” He mused, before pursing his lips in a whistle. Starting his glorious trek towards Dodge City, he already had a goal in mind.

Obtain the Elements of Harmony and try to become a “cool kid” which was to eliminate his PTSD and to make him likable. Who wouldn’t want to love a Changeling like him? “Enough ego strokin’, brain.” Jaeger hissed, his whistling stopping just for a quick second to patronize himself before resuming forwards.

The sun seemed to wink at Jaeger’s form as he walked on the nearby trail, the path to Dodge City clearly ahead of him. A long walk, but it'll be worth it.

"SHIT! DICK SCRAPE! FUCK! FUCKIN' DIRT!" Jaeger's form curled over briefly, letting out a hiss of pain before limping along even more cautiously, even more bent down, which is the opposite of what you want to do. Hey, he's in pain, so whatever. His fault for thinking it was going to be some real kid's story about innocent and happiness. Fuck that, it's the real world. And he hated it already.

Author's Note

i plan on following this one through, however i lack proof-readers/editors, so i mean if you want to follow me through writing the skeleton chapter and then adding onto it, be my guest. i'll need people to see how shit-tier it is and see if they can help with it.

yo, yo, ya boy Chomp Chomp comin back at you with another changeling fic because changelings are the shit

anyways, hope you guys enjoy this one. i wont be stopping it any time soon