The train ride back to Ponyville was a harrowing ordeal. I sat next to Thorax, he had brought along some of his changeling friends that had also wanted to secede from the rule of Queen Chrysalis. The bad part was his definition of the word SOME. When you think of the word some you tend to think of from 3 to 6, maybe 3 to 8 if you're feeling generous; this shapeshifting asshole thought some meant upwards of 20. So I had to rent out an entire car, pay off the entire train staff, and the ticket booth guy. Which was not easy considering almost all of them were in attendance for the wedding invasion. So after heavy bribery and some light threats, I managed to secure them passage in a cargo car. I looked at the changelings in said car, they were huddled against the walls and next to each other to preserve body temperature.

I managed to procure some blankets and food for the younger ones. I wrapped them up as tight as possible in the blankets, while I was wrapping up a Nymph named Ocellus she looked at me and spoke. "They seem to hate you. For what you're doing for us."

"People always hate what they don't understand." I said as I finished wrapping her up, "Besides, I'm used to it. People have hated me since before I got here."

"So, the ponies don't like us because they don't understand us?" Ocellus asked.

"That's part of it. The truth is complicated, and in order to understand why the ponies don't like you, is to ask you to be something you're not." I told her.

"Being something we're not is a part of being a changeling." She replied.

"Says who?" I asked her.

"It's tradition." She answered.

"Tradition is just your ancestors pressuring you to do what they've done. It's bullshit." I explained, "Now go sit with the others. Stay close together, you'll stay warmer that way."

I then shambled over to Thorax as he was huddled with another adult changeling, Zaten I think his name was. Zaten looked up at me and asked, "Why are you doing this? You could get in serious trouble."

"Why is the sky blue and the grass green?" I answered his question with another question. "Truth is I don't know, could be something about honor. The consequences of my past sins catching up to me, maybe something about redemption could be something about me being a marine. I could get in trouble yes, but I stopped caring a while ago."

"But what if you get caught?" Zaten asked me.

"There is nothing that they can do to me that I haven't already done to myself." I told him while sitting down, "I lived in a self imposed exile for 3 years when I got here, I trusted not a single soul but myself, I'm more than positive that I'm some sort of insane by now, but I don't care about that. You asked me for help, and I'm going to help you. No matter what."

"Th-Thank you." Zaten said.

"Don't thank me yet buggle, we've got a long way to go." I said as I exited the cart and entered a passenger cart. I made my way over to a member of the staff to grab more pillows and blankets.

"I still can't believe you're helping those things." The mare said, "They're monsters."

"So am I." I told her, "Your point is what?"

"But you don't eat love!" She tried to argue.

"Have you ever starved?" I asked her.

"What does that have to do with anything?" She asked.

"The thing about the changelings is, they never asked to be what they are, to eat what they eat, they only do what they do for one reason; survival. They can't grow food the same way ponies can, and they sure as hell can't consume it." I told them, I continued. "So yeah I'm going to help them, because they asked for help. If you want to call someone a monster, call them a monster because of their actions. I read about the wedding invasion, and I read a transcript of what their queen said, she said she is the one responsible for feeding her people. Did they do something bad, yeah they did. But they did it out necessity, that's not being a monster, that's being desperate. Being a monster is recognizing bad actions and actively choosing to do them. That's why I asked if you have ever starved, what are you willing to do to stop that hunger in your stomach, to stop the pain of going another night without any food? Because I have, I understand why they did what they did. I don't support it, but I understand it. So when they asked for me to help them. I did and I will continue to do so." I said and that shut her up, "So are you going to keep standing in my way? Or are you going to help someone because they asked for some help?"

She looked down, "Do the little ones need some hot chocolate? We have plenty of it."

"I think that would help immensely." I told her as she prepared a carafe of hot chocolate and put it on a cart for me. She the pushed it over to me and nodded as I got everything else. I pushed the cart into the cargo car and started to serve hot chocolate to help warm up the little ones as well as making the older ones more comfortable. "We should be out of the crystal empire and the frozen north within the hour." I explained. "The train will stop before the Ponyville station for some 'maintenance' and that's when we'll get off. We're going to be walking for a while so get as much rest as you can because it's going to be a long walk."

"Where are we going to be staying?" Ocellus yawned.

"In the abandoned castle of the two sisters. More specifically, the basement, cellar, and abandoned dungeon areas."

"So you are throwing us in a dungeon." Thorax stated fearfully.

"Yeah, except I'm giving you the keys and you can leave." I explained, "It's lacking a few basic needs, like running water and a place to shit."

"Oh we don't need to do that." Zaten said.

"You don't have to poop?" I asked.

"Kinda hard to poop when you eat love. Not exactly a solid." Thorax explained.

"Have you ever tried loving yourselves?" I asked them. They paused at that, I realized that they hadn't even considered the idea of that. "Let's circle back around to that at a later date. Is there anything you really need besides a place to live?"

"Well you said in order for you to help us we have to help you with your spy network." One of the other changelings said; I didn't have time to get all their names.

"Forgot about that one." I mumbled, "In order for you guys to work under me you have to get jobs yourself. I'm not exactly swimming in gold here, plus doing all of this to secure transportation for 20 changelings has taken most of my savings, on top of my impromptu vacation."

"So what do you want us to do?" Another asked.

"Collect information, anything from birthdays to weddings dates, divorces and affairs, all kinds of gossip. Most gossip has some truth behind it, it's just been filtered through so many ponies it's been muddled." I told them, "I'm going to need you to write this down in a book. Then I'll teach you how to defend yourselves, to keep Queen Chrysalis and her hive from poking their noses into business it doesn't belong."

"How are you going to do that?" One of the other adult changelings asked.

"I'm going to teach you the way I was taught, only the adults however. I'm going to teach the Nymphs something completely different." I explained, "Does that sound fair?" There were nods and murmurs of agreement, "Any money you earn will be yours, any information you gather, will be mine. Sound like a deal?"

"Deal." They all echoed at once.

"Alright, now get some sleep. We've still got plenty of time to travel." I told them and they all complied. I took a deep breath and sighed You better be prepared for what you're getting yourself into Mick. I rubbed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I know." I said to myself as I sat down next to the huddled together Nymphs. They instinctively reached out and clung to me, Ocellus nestled herself right underneath my arm, giving me no choice but to wrap my arm around her. "War is no place for a child." The ambient lights of the night and towns surrounding the railroad tracks passed by, with every other flash of light the changelings turned into refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan. Ocellus turning from a changeling to a human girl in a burqa. I closed my eyes, and knew what the feeling was. Guilt. "I can't change what I did." I told myself, "Who I was, is not who I'm going to be." I felt a hand squeeze my arm and I looked down at the owner of said hand, it was Ocellus, it looked like she was having a nightmare. I raised my arm and slowly rubbed her frill, and hummed a lullaby. She seemed to calm down, slowly releasing my hand and slinking out of my grip.

I gently lay her head on a pillow, I looked at the changelings, they flashed to become refugees once more, except they stayed as changelings in human clothing. Then in another instant, they were back in their original clothing. Next to nothing but rags and former sacks of what were onions and potatoes. I went over to the cart, with the empty mugs and discarded wrappers of graham crackers, I pushed the cart back to the place I received it. I looked up at the staffer and she looked at me, "H-How are they?" She asked.

"Tired." I told her.

"Sounds like you're describing yourself." She replied.

"They're refugees of a war that was started by their leader to secure them a source of food. They got their ass kicked and their leader has gone off the deep end, and Equestria is uniting other countries against them." I said as I sat down, "I've seen the ugliest sides of war, and it doesn't matter who wins or who loses. Because in the end there are not winners or losers, there are the ones who survive and the ones who don't. Right now, the changelings aren't surviving and they know it." I explained, "I'm a survivor of a worse war than the likes of every species on this planet will ever dream of and it broke me. I don't want to see people who don't want to be a part of a war be dragged into it."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" She said.

"To make sure that I'm not alone in my thoughts." I told her, "Because if I know that there's someone out there who possesses the same knowledge of those people just wanting to escape a terrible life in an attempt to make a better one for themselves, then I may sleep a little better at night." I said.

"What if I go and tell someone?" She asked.

"Who would believe you?" I retorted and looked out the window, "Still a ways off." I settled into my chair and looked at my phone, it was 9:47 pm. "Wake me up when we stop." I told her and she silently nodded. I soon drifted off into a nap. I was awoken by the mare shaking my foot, I looked up at her and she nodded. I grabbed my seat and made my way to the cargo car. Time to work.

Author's Note

A promise long overdue.