Light birdsong nagged Zeki from his sleep. The zebra colt’s eyes flitted open. His blurry vision took in the familiar sight of his small bedroom as the early morning sun splashed light through his room.

The twelve-year-old's hooves rubbed the blurriness out of his eyes, bringing the room into focus. It was way too early, especially for a Sunday.

With a groan, he kicked the covers back, then paused to re-check his calendar. Slowly, his face lit up with excitement as he remembered what he was to do on that particular Sunday: study changelings!

Like any colt his age, Zeki loved superheroes and adventure books. But Changelings had been a unique interest of his for years. As a Zebra of the forest tribes, Zeki was a trained alchemist and he’d long admired the changelings for their unique ability to change their shape to almost any living thing!

Bright eyed and eager for the day ahead, he hopped out of bed and trotted to the door of his small bedroom with a slight spring in his step.

His experience with alchemy made him a modest sum of cash each day as ponies came to his door looking for medicine and other potions. He loved to help ponies, since the money he got helped him afford his small apartment on the outskirts of Ponyville.

Trotting into his kitchen, the colt began to make himself breakfast.

He grabbed a box of cornflakes and a bottle of milk, pouring them both into a bowl and adding more sugar than he really needed to help appease his foalish appetite for sweetness.

The sound of the cereal hitting the hard bowl always took him back to the days when his foster parents made him do unspeakable things. He still had nightmares reminding him of what they did to him.

He initially wanted to give up cereal entirely when he left his foster home since his ‘father’ always forced him to guzzle down leftover cereal in the morning before their regular fuck-session. For whatever reason, he still felt compelled to keep the same morning routine.

Maybe it was because a small part of him still wanted to be dominated?

Of course not, don’t be silly… he thought as he began to crunch on mouthfuls of cornflakes.

His owners always told him he’d never be anything but a cock-sleeve, but he’d show them! He was going to be the one to discover just how changeling magic worked!

The colt guzzled down the remaining milk and wiped his mouth clean. He set his bowl in the sink and quickly rushed to the bathroom to shower. He flicked the tap and waited anxiously for the water to heat up, conscious of the time ticking away and that he had to catch the first train to the Badlands if he was to fit in all of the activities he had planned for his first day of changeling-hunting.

He stepped in and quickly began to wash himself off, lathering himself with his own homemade coat shampoo which gave his body a nice glossy sheen. He then took a hoofful of mane and tail shampoo and massaged it through his short monochromatic coat, making sure to work it all the way through his prim tail.

Not wanting to waste any time, Zeki hopped out and quickly towelled himself off. He trotted to the washbasin where he picked up his toothbrush and squirted a thick glob of toothpaste onto it before quickly running its bristles over his teeth and spitting into the basin.

Deeming himself sufficiently clean, the colt rushed back into the main living area of his small apartment, grabbing his saddlebags and fitting them to his barrel. Usually, they were packed full of school equipment, but he’d made sure to pack it with all kinds of camping gear for the weekend ahead.

He swung open his door and stepped into the quiet Ponyville road, the early morning chill stinging his coat a little. He had a long walk across the town to the train station, and he didn’t want to risk missing his ride.

He approached the ticketing booth, which was occupied by a rather tired-looking earth stallion who gazed blankly out of the ticketing window. The stallion was so absent that he didn’t even notice the colt approaching his booth.

“Hey, Mister!” Zeki called.

The stallion snapped awake, looking around to see who was calling him. Zeki’s eyes barely managed to see above the counter, making it so that the groggy stallion’s gaze passed straight over him.

“Down here!” he said, a hint of impatience in his voice. He didn’t want to miss his train!

“Oh, hey there little buddy!” the stallion said.

Zeki huffed and rolled his eyes. “I-I’m not little! I’m twelve years old,” he informed the attendee, who let out a hearty chuckle.

“Of course,” he said. “Now, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“One ticket to the Badlands, please!” Zeki said respectfully, digging a few bits out of his bag to pay for the ride.

The cashier hit a few buttons to his left and printed out a ticket for the colt, exchanging the bits for the stub of paper while offering a questioning look. “Why would a colt like you wanna go all the way out to the Badlands?”

“I’m gonna go find some Changelings!” Zeki stated proudly, juvenile excitement dripping from his voice.

The stallion chuckled, giving him a soft, patronizing smile. “Are you? Well, I wish you luck in your search!” he said.

“Thank you!” Zeki replied, taking his ticket and bouncing past the ticketing booth onto the platform.

The dirty train platform was all but empty. A few sleepy ponies wearing high-visibility gear stared absently at the train tracks from wooden seats that lined the wall opposite the tracks, waiting for their ride to wherever they had been called to work.

Zeki was far too excited to sit down like the grown-ups were, his monochrome tail flicking in anticipation as he listened for the first signs of his ride pulling into the sleepy station.

It wasn’t long before the screech of metal on metal rang through the platform. Ponies rose from the benches they sat on and dragged themselves to their hooves.

He shuffled as close to the yellow line at the edge of the platform as he could, eager to be the first one on board. The doors of the train slid open and a brown earth pony stepped out of the door to check the tickets of those getting on board. He wore a blue hat and vest with a shiny badge emblazoned with the word ‘Conductor’.

The Conductor smiled at each pony, offering small talk and pleasantries to the familiar faces of the morning slog while he used a hole punch on each pony’s ticket. When he arrived at Zeki, however, he hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“Hey there, buddy! Where are you off to so early in the morning, shouldn’t you be resting up for school tomorrow?” he asked.

Zeki puffed out his chest. “I’m on school break,” he explained. “I’m going to research changeling magic in the Badlands!” He stated proudly, smiling up at the earth pony.

The pony gave him a somewhat patronising smile as he clicked Zeki’s ticket and handed it back to him. “That sounds like an adventure,” the conductor said, ruffling the colt’s mane. “Well, have fun, and! I hope you find out everything you’re looking for!” he said as he moved on to the next pony waiting to have their ticket checked.

Zeki boarded the train and found himself a quiet seat next to a window so he could look out at the world passing by. A few ponies were already seated, having come from other towns before Ponyville.

The carriage itself was pleasant enough. The carpet was red and slightly grimy from the thousands of passengers it carried to various places around Equestria over the years, but otherwise, the train was well kept and maintained. Zeki could tell that a lot of care was put into making the ageing carriage as pleasant as possible for travellers.

Finally, the last of the passengers took their seats on the train and the doors hissed shut. The train’s metal wheels screeched to life as the platform outside of the train slowly began to slide away from the window.

Zeki unclipped his saddlebags from his sides, sliding them to the ground in front of his seat. He wiggled his flank to make himself comfortable before reaching into the bags to pull out his reference book on everything black and chitinous - ‘Changelings and Where to Find Them’. It was one of the many new reference book releases by the mysterious Dawn Shine. She was Zeki’s favourite author, and one of the various inspirations for his trip to the Badlands.

Nopony actually knew who ‘Dawn Shine’ was, but most thought it was a pen-name for some high-society pony with a secret past of adventure. The mystery sparked Zeki’s imagination to no end, driving him to do whatever he could to live up to his elusive hero.

The book had a hard, red faux-leather cover. Its title and author was carefully etched in majestic gold in the centre. Around the edges, the fake leather had begun to crack; a testament to its intensive use in the months after Zeki proudly bought it from the local bookstore. It was the first new item that was truly his after he was liberated from his foster family’s clutches

Words floated from the pages within and surrounded Zeki. His intense focus pulled him deep into a trance-like state as he read. The familiar first words of the book excited him just as if he were absorbing the information for the first time.

Train stations came and went uneventfully. The train slowly began to fill with more and more ponies as it got closer to Las Pegasus, the biggest city along the path of the train’s tracks.

A tall stallion in a business suit stepped onto the train and took a seat on the other side of Zeki’s carriage, holding a newspaper in his magic. Zeki glanced up from his book, unconsciously noting the newcomer’s muscular form and slightly stubbly chin. His sheath tingled as he held back his arousal, trying to stop his cock from sliding out.

The colt tore his eyes from the attractive stallion and returned to his book. The unicorn, however, had found his own interest in Zeki.

He rose from his seat and slid into the empty space beside Zeki. The scent of his aftershave and latent stallion musk washed over the colt, making him blush just a little as he tried to focus on reading his book.

“Hey buddy,” the stallion said in a deep, masculine voice.

“H-Hi!” Zeki squeaked.

“I saw you sitting all by your lonesome. Thought you might need a little company.” Zeki gently closed his book to look at the grownup talking to him. “I’m Gavel, what’s your name?”

“Zeki…” he muttered.

“That’s a nice name. Are your parents here with you, Zeki?” Gavel pried.

Zeki’s hooves quivered a little at the tone of his voice; the scents, sights and sounds of the strong, powerful stallion beside him setting his crotch on fire as he tried desperately to hide his arousal.

Should he even be talking to this stranger? There wasn’t any reason Gavel would want to hurt him, right?

“N-No, I-I’m alone,” he said quietly.

“Oh? It’s a big world out here; are you sure it’s a good idea for a little colt such as yourself to go unprotected?” he cooed. His foreleg starting to wrap around the colt’s shoulders while he shuffled closer to Zeki so the colt could feel the warmth of Gavel’s fur and get an even deeper lungful of the stallion’s mature scent.

Zeki’s face twisted to one of mild annoyance as he shied away from the stallion. “H-Hey, I’m not little. I’m twelve years old!” he cried, prompting the stallion to chuckle.

“Of course. I’m sorry, you’re not little at all,” Gavel apologised. “I’ve never had a zebra before~,” he said in a deep, sultry tone as his strong hoof pulled Zeki close.

The colt’s blush deepened as he realised what Gavel was implying, unable to stop his cock from sliding from its sheath. He quickly used the book between his hooves to cover his erection, hoping that the stallion wouldn’t notice.

“Where are you headed?” he asked, glancing down at the book.

“I-I’m going to research changelings in the Badlands!” Zeki replied, pleased with the change in subject.

The stallion tensed a little, his ears perking and his mouth stretching into a sly smile. “Oh? That seems like fun~,” Gavel cooed, teasing his thigh with a hoof.

“Yeah! I wanna learn all about their magic and stuff for my potions!”

Gavel slid his forehoof around Zeki’s shoulders, pulling him close enough for the little colt to feel the grown-up’s breath tickling his head. “I think I’d like to do some learning myself, although my research may be a little…” he paused in thought for a moment, “unconventional…” he finished.

Zeki gasped at the touch, crossing his legs and screwing his eyes shut. The teasing was becoming too much for his young mind to handle. Years of conditioning to respond with nothing but arousal to the advances of stallions made his cock twitch and leak precum at the thought of Gavel pounding him behind some dumpster in Las Pegasus.

His eyes fluttered open, a flame of need burning in his gaze. He began to form a reply but was interrupted by the loud screech of the train coming to a stop at the Las Pegasus train station. Most of the carriage’s passengers began to rise and head for the doors.

“Sorry to cut our chat short, I would have loved an opportunity to get to know you better~,” he said, rising from his seat. He shot Zeki a sultry glance, “Maybe one day I will!” he said, turning and flicking his tail while he strode towards the train doors, shamelessly showing off the huge, erect cock beneath him, hypnotically swaying with each step he took.

The second Gavel melted into the crowd, the flustered colt let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Thank Celestia for Las Pegasus! He didn’t know how much more he could take before he was going to give in to Gavel’s advances.

He closed his eyes and took deep breaths to clear his mind and coax his cock back into his sheath.

No such luck.

As the train started to pull away from the station once more, he stood and headed towards the back of the carriage, where the bathrooms lay. His shaft throbbed awkwardly beneath him as he walked, and a few ponies stared with looks of judgement or arousal as his musk washed over his fellow passengers.

After what felt like ages, he finally made it to the back of the train, where he slid open the door to an unoccupied bathroom and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and made sure it was totally locked.

He was going to be a while.

After he finished in the bathroom, Zeki flusteredly returned to his seat. His deep blush and still-twitching sheath betrayed what he had done to anypony who looked at him for more than a few seconds, and his fellow passengers shot him dirty looks as he passed by.

He sighed with relief as he reached his seat picked up his book, finding the spot where Gavel interrupted him. It wasn’t hard to find the page: his desperate attempts to hide his arousal had smeared some of his precum on it, making him blush even harder as he was taken back to the feelings of being touched by the stallion.

Shaking his head to clear it of such thoughts, he began to read again. The world around him melted away once more while he got lost between the lines of each page.

It felt like only a few short minutes had passed before the train conductor’s voice pulled him from his reading. “Last stop!” he called. Zeki had arrived at the Badlands!

He leapt to his hooves and hastily grabbed his bag, closing his book and slipping it into his saddlebags, strapping them almost too tightly around his barrel. He hurriedly stumbled out of his seat and down the carriage, joining the small crowd of ponies leaving the train and stepped out into the harsh sunlight of southern Equestria.

Following the flow of ponies off the platform, he found himself standing outside the train station. Before him was a bustling market town, with traders of all kinds peddling their wares to anypony who passed by. Beyond lay a variety of strange landscapes, remnants of magical wars long past. From endless, swirling storms to a constantly morphing, flame scorched desert, there was no shortage of places for Zeki to search!

Zeki pulled out a map from his saddlebags and took a seat on a nearby wooden bench. It creaked even under his light weight, showing its age. The worn map rustled as he unfolded it, and Zeki recalled his years being trained to work the land and find his way back home from wherever he was.

“Let’s see, north is this way so…” he muttered, looking for one of the many landmarks and potential Changeling hotspots he had meticulously mapped out through his research. “The Wilting Willows should be about… There!” he said, looking up and staring off triumphantly in the direction of the forest he was looking for.

Of course, he had no intention of actually entering the hive! He was more than happy to simply find a nice clearing to camp in for a few days and see if he could spot a changeling or two.

The trees stretched for what seemed like miles. They were white, killed by one of the many magical mishaps that happened during Equestria’s history, and petrified in time to create an eerie, foreboding mood, even from miles away.

It was a perfect starting point for Zeki’s adventure!

He stood up and set off for the forest, skirting around the main hub of the town on a worn and under-maintained path. Excitement mounted in his chest with each step he took, his tail flicking and rump swaying with enthusiasm while the Wilting Willows got bigger and bigger on the horizon.

It wasn’t far from the town, and he managed to arrive at the entrance to the forest. The path quickly faded into a faint trail on the shadowy forest floor.

Through sheer density, the branches of the trees blocked out a significant amount of sunlight despite their lack of foliage and the presence of a heavy fog which seemed fill every space not taken up by a tree. The fog spilt from the mouth of the forest, lapping at Zeki’s hooves.

“I-It looked a lot less scary on the map…” he muttered to nopony in particular. He glanced over his shoulder at the town he left behind.

I-I could go back, nopony would know, he thought, quickly shaking his head to banish such thoughts from his mind. No—he wasn’t going to let his whole trip be for nothing!

He audibly gulped his nerves into his belly, lifting his forehoof and screwing his eyes shut as he took his first step into the mist.

One eye cracked open, then the other. He let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. He didn’t even know why he was worrying. It was just fog, after all.

His confidence was short-lived as it only took a few short trots for the fog to close in around him. White filled his vision, and only the faintest outline of a path allowed him to see where he was going.

Taking a deep breath, he called upon his lessons as a young colt, using his senses as a zebra of the forest to find his way around. The sun’s light barely pierced the veil of fog, helping him gain a vague idea of which direction he should head.

The path took him east, towards the general area he’d marked for the hive. It was almost like the path was taking him right to it! His natural sense of navigation told him that there was still a long way to go before he’d arrive.

He trekked for hours, stopping only to eat, drink or use the bathroom somewhere just a little out of the way of the path. Finally, however, the sun was starting to set. He needed to make camp before he was caught in the dark. If it was hard to see during the day, he could be certain it was going to be impossible in the nighttime.

Luckily for the little zebra, he had just arrived at a clearing as the sun started to dip behind the treeline.

Unfastening his saddlebags, he slid his small tent from its carry bag and went to work on setting it up. The forest floor was soft despite its dead appearance, meaning there was plenty of nice ground to secure the tent upon. He pulled out his flashlight and used it to navigate until he got his fire started.

By the time he’d finished setting up his camp with a tent and a campfire, the sun had long been asleep, and Luna’s night hung heavy over the forest.

Zeki sighed with relief and settled down in front of his warm fire. He pulled a small can of beans and a tiny collapsible pot from his saddlebags to cook his dinner.

He was just about to open the can with a nearby rock when a sound caught his attention.

His ears swivelled towards the sound, trying to make out where it was coming from and if it was a threat. Rising to his hooves, he took on a crouching stance and prepared to run at the slightest sign of danger.

“Wh-Who’s there?” he asked the darkness, hoping the newcomer was friend and not foe. He swung his flashlight around desperately, making sure to purge as much shadow as he possibly could.

The sound came again, “H-Help m-me…” it called. Zeki’s eyes widened. It wasn’t a threat at all; somepony needed his help!

He quickly headed in the direction the voice, pushing away from the clearing and into the trees to find the pony in need.

After a few minutes of searching, he came across the source of the sound in a small ditch. A small pegasus filly not much younger than himself quivered in the harsh light of his torch. Her leg was stuck under a broken branch at an awkward angle, and scratches and bruises riddled her sweat-coated body. She obviously wasn’t strong enough to get herself out of her situation.

“D-Don’t worry, I’m coming!” Zeki cried, rushing to the ditch and sliding down.

He wasted no time before shoving at the branch. The filly grunted with effort as she struggled to free herself, tugging and jerking with what little strength she could offer to help free herself.

A few moments later, Zeki managed to shove the branch just enough for her to tear herself free of her wooden shackle.

“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!” the filly cried, clinging to Zeki desperately. Branches were caught in the white feathers of her wings, which fluttered, shaking the debris free.

Zeki’s chest swelled with pride at her affection, his tail flicking proudly as he tried his best to act cool in front of the filly. “It was no sweat, I’m just glad I was here to help!” he said, “I’m Zeki, what’s your name?”

“G-Gold Saucer…” she muttered, looking up at the colt.

Zeki looked down at her, feeling her warmth against his body as he gazed into her big, blue, pupil-less orbs, feeling their warm glow comfort him and slow his thoughts.

Wait, ponies don’t have eyes like that! She was a changeling!

Panic rose in his chest as he tried to pry her off of him and look away, but her entrancing gaze kept him paralysed in place. He quivered in fear, his mind fighting the call of sleep her hypnosis was giving, but to no avail.

His torch dropped from his hoof, clattering to the forest floor. More changelings emerged from the shadows. Their eyes were the only feature that pierced the darkness of the night and the blackness tugging at the edge of his vision.

“Sleep well~,” the changeling in his hooves cooed. Green fire consumed it as it revealed its true form and stepped away. Zeki stumbled for a few moments before falling into a crumpled heap, his mind fading into unconsciousness.

Author's Note

I'm finally back to writing!

I decided to split this one up into two chapters because it feels like it should be. Thanks to Mathadar for the commission!