“Anonymous? Really?”
I nod emphatically. “Really. It's, um, perfectly ordinary where I come from.” I squirm a little, struggling to get comfortable in the pony-shaped chair. “My father was Anonymous as well,” I volunteer.
The Mayor stares at me over her little glasses. “Was he now. What strange names you ‘humans’ have.” She returns to filling in my residence paperwork.
I try not to show her my relief. Instead I change tack. “I'm sorry, Mrs Mayor, but I didn't catch your name. Every…er…pony just called you the Mayor.”
Without looking up she answers, “I'm Mayor Mare.”
I keep a straight face. Really, I do.
It started two molting cycles earlier, when I returned from my last mission. I cowered before the black throne and proclaimed, “My Queen, I have returned!”
The Queen was lounging in her nest of assorted ponyphernalia. It had, if anything, gotten worse in the time I'd been away. Books, scrolls, newspapers, drawings, paintings, lithographs, photographs, phonographs, phonebooks, all the cultural output of Equestria. And the largest part of it, marked by bookmarks or hung up on the walls, related to one pony in particular.
At that precise moment, the Queen was in the middle of a crossword puzzle. She had acquired a pair of reading glasses, over which she peered at me. She looked confused to see me there. Haughty and regal, of course, but still confused. “Returned from where?”
“From my mission to infiltrate the hairless ape tribes of the Dactylian Interior.”
“What were you doing there?” she asked incredulously.
“Infiltrating them, my Queen.”
“Did I tell you to do that?”
“Yes, my Queen!”
She scratched her horn. “Why?”
“To establish whether they might serve as an alternative source of emotional energy for the Hive.”
She did not look convinced. “If you insist. So was your mission a success?”
I was dreading the moment she'd ask me this. I started with the good news. “I…was able to infiltrate them successfully. They never suspected me.”
She waved a perforated hoof dismissively. “Yes yes, any drone could do that. But are they a viable source of love?”
“No, my Queen,” I replied decisively, dreading the punishment for my failure, “for their bodies are practically devoid of magic, making it much harder to extract emotional energies from them. Their society is shockingly primitive, with no cities and few permanent settlements, which would hinder any effort to collect emotions on a large scale. Furthermore, their lands are extremely distant and hard to reach.”
This was something of an understatement. To first reach the Gazellan port of Horndoba I’d had to stow away on an Asinian airship, an experience that had left some deep scars on my body and my psyche; then I posed as an aged and addled Zebrican explorer to ride the rattly railway to even reach the foothills of the mountains beyond which these ‘humans’ reside. I was never going to get the smell of coal out of my carapace.
“I see. That all sounds like something of a wasted trip then,” she said as if critical of my odd decision to go there in the first place. “Ah well, time for your next mission I suppose.”
No punishment? Not even a cycle cleaning the mucus pods? Awesome!
I guessed this might have been related to our Hive having moved in the months I was away, and the much smaller number of changelings I saw in the new Hive. Presumably the Queen had sent many of them on some grand mission. And I got to be part of it.
“Yes, my Queen! Where should I go?”
“Ponyville. See if you can't seduce a librarian or two.” Clearly our Queen's obsession with the Equestrians hadn't subsided. Few in the Hive claimed to fully understand it when there were so many other lands ripe for the taking, but it was the Queen's job to decide the Hive's priorities, and ours to follow.
“Equestria, hmm…” I raised a hoof to my chin. I'd spent so long disguised as one of those damned dirty apes that the shape almost felt natural to me. Almost. “I'm not sure I even remember how to do a pony…”
“So use the same form as your last mission then,” she snapped. “Do I have to think of everything?”
I blanched, the ichor draining from my face. She wanted me to infiltrate Equestria, not in the form of a pony, but as an upright, nearly-hairless ape? A form both alien to them and obvious? And, to add insult to my inevitable injury, one that would stand tall over the ponies, making it easier to see?
I considered questioning the Queen's order, but realised that she must have a good reason for this decision, one to which a mere scout like myself would not be privy. Perhaps the ponies had become better at spotting changelings among themselves since the Canterlot invasion, and she hoped to trick them by sending a creature they aren't familiar with? Or perhaps my role would be to provide a distraction to allow some other, more subtle changeling infiltrator to achieve their mission? If that were the case, it would be natural for me not to be told; that way I couldn't reveal information I didn't know, even under interrogation.
Regardless, there was one fact of which I was certain: disobedience would be a quick path to her displeasure. So like any good changeling I replied, “Yes, my Queen!”
The Mayor and I emerge from the town hall into bright daylight, prompting me to raise my ‘hand’ to shield my eyes. The town square seems fairly busy today, dozens of ponies coming, going, meandering and peddling their wares. But no matter their business, it seems everypony can spare a suspicious pair of eyes for me. I can't blame them. The odd shape I'm wearing clearly stands out.
“Hello,” calls out the Mayor, waving to another pony across the square. What luck! The librarian, my target, turns towards us. What did the Queen call her – Purple Smart? It certainly sounds like a pony name, and fits this one well enough. Maybe I can get this mission completed and move on quickly, before it all inevitably comes crashing down? She trots up to us, watching me cautiously, and the Mayor asks her, “If it's not too much trouble, Twilight, can I impose on you to show Mr, um, Mr Anonymous around the town?” Oh, so her name is Twilight. Or maybe that's her nickname? That must be it, only her close friends get to call her Twilight. I make a note not to offend her by using the name by accident.
It's strange, though. I'd heard the librarian was a unicorn, but this Purple Smart clearly has wings as well. Looking around, I don't see any other ponies with the same combination. This must be a rare caste among ponies, less than one in a hundred certainly.
Purple Smart looks me up and down. But in contrast to every other pony's mistrust, she looks up at me with cheerful curiosity. She's brave for a librarian. “Mr Anonymous? Is that really your name?” she asks in understandable disbelief.
“Uh, yes?” I squeak.
The Mayor looks at me sympathetically. “I'm afraid you're going to get that a lot. Anonymous isn't exactly a typical name around here.”
Too late to change my mind now. “I guess I'll, uh, just have to get used to it.”
Turning to Purple Smart, the Mayor fills in, “Anonymous here apparently comes from another world, and fell through a… portal thing that brought him here? Is that right?”
“That's right,” I confirm. “I was minding my own business, and suddenly found myself in this strange world filled with ponies.” It's the best story I could come up with for why I'd be here in this shape. I just hope they don't use some sort of magic… cleverness… thing to confirm it. They'd uncover my real identity pretty quickly if they did.
Purple is looking up at me with a hoof raised to her muzzle. “Actually, your species is one I'm familiar with,” she said thoughtfully.
I curse to myself. This form is supposed to be unheard of outside Gazellan, and obscure even there. But of course, the librarian would know all about exotic creatures from deep in the wilderness. She's probably read books on the subject by Zebrican explorers. Nervously I ask, “You are?”
She nods confidently. “I visited a world inhabited by creatures like yourself. Though they had many different sorts of colours and generally wore more clothes.”
A whole world? Not the same remote corner of jungle?
“Colours and clothes, yes,” I improvise frantically. “We do lots of clothes. All the time.”
“It must have been most unfortunate then to have fallen through a portal at a moment when you weren't wearing any.” I nod, desperately. “Also, they had much bigger eyes.”
They did? Did I screw up the eyes? They are much smaller than pony eyes.
“Tell me, did this portal you fell through look anything like a mirror?”
Oh thank the Hive! Not only has she not unmasked me, she actually just managed to corroborate my ridiculous story.
Still, it's slightly unnerving to think that I was inadvertently telling the truth about there being a world inhabited by these ‘humans’. Everyling is taught the importance of not being earnest.
Also, the town librarian here is in the habit of visiting other worlds? Is that normal here? Is there a danger of her trying to send me ‘home’ through this portal? I’d best make sure she doesn't get too close.
“Er… not really, it was more like a doorway in the forest. And it was all spinny…” I wave my arms around in a manner that I hope will at least confuse her studies long enough for me to escape town.
“Hmm.” She taps a hoof to her chin. “Alright, follow me and I'll show you around,” says Purple. “I'd best take you to Sugarcube Corner. You're going to run into Pinkie Pie sooner or later, so we may as well cut out the middlemare and get it over with. First, though…” Her eyes drift down my body, then snap back up to my face. “Why don't we see if Rarity can find something to, uh, make you more presentable?”
One dramatic panic attack later, my modesty is covered by some sort of toga thrown hastily together, and just as hastily decorated with a purple trim and gold brocade and held together with an emerald clasp. Because, “there's decency, and then there's decency, darling.”
As we emerge once more into the blinking daylight, I try to discern the ponies from one another. So far they've all been a bit of a blur, but among the crowd I spot somepony a little different. “Hey, is that a zebra?” I ask.
Purple follows my eyes to where the zebra’s discussing something with a shopkeeper. It sounds like they're arguing over a price. “Yes, that's Zecora,” she replies cheerfully. “She lives in the Everfree Forest, grows herbs and cooks up potions and the like. If you're ever cursed, she's the one you’ll need to go to.”
“Is that likely? Getting cursed, I mean.”
“You'd be surprised. Living next to the Everfree Forest does make things interesting. Oh, but don't go into the Everfree on your own. It's very dangerous,” she chastises me. “I'm surprised, though – you know what a zebra is?”
Damn! I screwed up. I can't let her know that I've been to Zebrica, not when she’s supposed to think I've just arrived from another world entirely. The Queen will have my mandibles for this!
“Er, yes, they do have zebras where I come from. Though they don't usually wear as much jewellery. Or talk. At all.” That should throw her off.
“How curious. The same species evolved in parallel on different worlds? I wonder if that means they shared a connection throughout prehistory…” It seems to work, sending Purple into a thinking cycle.
This is a good sign, actually. If the ponies can accept a zebra living among them, maybe they could learn to accept a ‘human’ as well. Even if the story of where I come from sounds like cheap fiction.
“Oh, Spike!” She waves down a short green creature. “Where are you going?”
“I'm just going to help Miss Rarity with her gem finding,” says the lizard. It can talk! “Who’s your friend?”
I wave a hand cheerfully. Another non-pony living here, and more good news. This little lizard thing is the first bipedal creature – other than my own current, itchy form – that I've seen anywhere in Equestria! And he's connected to the librarian and to Rarity. He's looking at me as cautiously as I'm looking at him, though I can't blame him.
“All right, just be back for dinner. I'll introduce you two properly later.”
The creature goes on his way, sparing a suspicious glance behind him at me. I wonder what variety of lizard he is?
As I watch him waddle away, an unsettling thought strikes me. Go seduce a librarian or two, the Queen said. She couldn't have meant this little creature as well… could she?
“Oh, can you hold on a minute.” Purple waves to a group of little fillies and a young-looking greenish-grey gryphon hen that are running through the town square. One of the fillies, a little black one with glasses, runs over to Purple. I don't hear what they're saying though. Instead I'm transfixed by an abomination.
I glared at my hooves. They were trembling, and I couldn’t stop them. My breathing was shallow, and the sweat was dripping through my mane, pushing black and white hairs in front of my eyes. The hot, humid air and yellowish darkness in the cargo hold didn't help.
I looked up, realising I’d been staring vacantly for some minutes. They could find my hiding place between packing crates at any time. The airship hold was big, its shapes and angles irregular, but no hiding place offered more than a few minutes of safety. The walkways were too narrow and stacked with too much luggage to move freely, and the motion of the vessel caused me to collide with the stacked luggage, or it with me, producing treacherous noises that would bring them to me. The infernal things seemed able to see through any shape I took, whether animal, vegetable or mineral.
The balloon lurched again, and my stomach followed suit.
Donkey engineering is both impressive and terrifying. By some means beyond ordinary magic, I was crossing the ocean in a massive metal box held aloft under an even bigger balloon, carrying dozens or maybe hundreds of passengers and a similar number of sailors, servants and staff. But the biggest danger of stowing away in the hold of an Asinian airship isn't that you'll be discovered by the crew, or that one of their unique, intricate mechanisms will randomly decide to blow up – though that is always a risk. No, the biggest danger is the way those donkeys just keep inventing. Never content with something that simply works, they must keep adding features and improving it, even if that stops the things itself from working or turns it into something else entirely. And given a world full of inspiration and raw materials, they can be staggeringly, dangerously, horrifyingly creative.
“Would sir like a cup of tea?”
My heart leapt into my mouth at the words, delivered in a polite metallic voice, and they filled my ichor with ice. I turned my head to find that the large suitcase behind me had sprouted four mechanical arms, a rudimentary head sporting a top hat and moustache, a fold-out tray bearing a miniature kettle, paraffin stove, teapot and cups, a tiny cutlery drawer with little spoons, and three containers of loose leaf tea. A small, chuffing compartment shrouded in pipes and wires held a little bottle of milk that actually glistened with frost.
I bolted, hooves scrambling as they sought purchase on the slippery metal floor, with an insufferably loud clanging that would surely bring every infernal device in this hold down on my head. I became a pegasus, then a gryphon, but neither could manoeuvre in the confined labyrinth of luggage.
It was only two days since I’d stowed away in the cargo hold of this airship, and so far I had encountered devices that had tried to wash me, transcribe me, transform me, introduce me to their daughters, and sort me into alphabetical order. Two of them had exploded, one had eaten itself, and one had somehow teleported itself into the sea. I considered it a miracle that any Asinian vessel ever reached its destination, with or without its luggage.
It dawned on me as I clattered headlong down the metal walkway that the crew must know I'm down here. They're just sensible enough to leave me and the devices to it.
Standing before me now, cute as can be, is a vile contraption to rival anything ever made by donkey hooves. It’s shaped like an adorable white unicorn pony filly with a bubbly pink mane, but from inside it emerge the obvious sounds of gears and pistons.
“Identification unknown,” it chimes in a flat monotone.
“Yeah, who's yer new friend, Twi?” asks a yellow filly with a big ribbon, trotting up to me. “Hi, I'm Apple Bloom.”
I admit that I'm staring. “Identification unknown,” repeats the robot.
“I bet he knows lots of cool stuff,” says an orange one, flapping her wings but not flying.
“Identification unknown,” the machine insists.
“Is he okay?” asks the little black one with the glasses. “He seems broken.”
“What's he called?” asks the yellow one, Apple Bloom.
“How about ‘Mister Gangly’?” suggests the orange one.
“I shall call him ‘Mister Height Greater Than Width’,” suggests the automaton.
Purple stands up on her hind legs and waves a hoof in front of my face. “Hey, are you in there, Mr Anonymous?”
I snap out of it. “Oh, sorry. I was just remembering something.”
The one called Scootaloo scrunches her face up. “Nah, don't be silly, Twilight. ‘Anonymous’ is a stupid name.”
“Hey!” I object.
Seeing that I’d pulled myself together, Purple turns to the fillies and says, “Run along girls. I need to take Mr Anonymous to see Pinkie Pie before he gets accosted.” The fillies all seem to accept this as a perfectly reasonable thing to do. What, is this Pinkie Pie really so bad?
“Hey, Scootaloo,” says the gryphon, looking at a nearby alleyway as they walk away, “Do you know that stallion?”
The orange one tears herself from me to check out the alleyway. Sure enough there's a dishevelled pegasus stallion under a cardboard box. She turns her back on him. “That's Nopony Special.”
“Really? ’Cause I'm fairly sure he's been looking at you.”
“Really, that's Nopony,” says the orange one forcefully. Harsh, dude. What did that guy do to you?
“If you insist,” says the gryphon with a shrug. She seems disappointed. As they walk out of earshot I hear her ask, “So where do you live again?”
The more I see of Ponyville, the more varied and cosmopolitan it turns out to be. There's another little lizard – I really must find out what variety of creature they are – walking along with a yak calf with braided pigtails, and a bird-horse hybrid thing of some sort. There’s a gryphon and a little blueish creature I really can’t identify, even if it looks a bit like my old friend Ocellus got repainted in bright colours. There's a—
What the Hive is that!?
The creature before me is neither pony nor gryphon nor lizard. Instead it's all these things at once, like it's been stitched together from spare parts. It stands upright on two mismatched legs, but right now it's bent over to look underneath one of the market stalls.
“Come on out, Fluttershy,” he says in an oddly familiar voice. “The joke wasn't that bad.”
Leaning over to peer underneath it, I see a yellow pony crouching under the stall, except that she has fangs and bat-like wings. Whenever the conglomerate creature gets close, she hisses at him like a small angry cat.
Other ponies either ignore the odd couple or find them quietly amusing. Apparently I'm going to have much less trouble fitting in than I’d feared.
The zebra from before walks past, and catches my eyes with a knowing look. What's with that? Does she actually know something about me, or is she just in the habit of giving every creature she meets knowing looks?
Clickety clack. Clickety clack.
The train slowed to a stop at the station, though the name was generous. Beyond the single platform were a few ramshackle buildings, the open safari, the distant mountains and the vast blue sky.
The door of our compartment slid open, and a head poked in to check how full it was. The owner of the head was not concerned at finding that his head was larger than most other occupants of the carriage put together. Evidently deciding it was good enough, the elderly elephant bull squeezed his way into the carriage and settled onto a row of seats. Behind him trotted a tiny gazelle with overladen bags, a pair of ibex and a giraffe, who ducked her head to avoid hitting the door frame. Each of them found an appropriate seat.
Railway carriages in The Serene Confederation of Gazellen are built to a different scale than elsewhere.
I watched the scene over my thin little pince-nez glasses before returning to the book in my lap. I didn't particularly want to interact with any of my fellow passengers. I reflected that Gazellan trains had one major advantage: none of the luggage was mechanically animated and chasing after me with a collection of scissors and multiple sprays of hair gel.
The last passenger to enter the carriage was a pony. He immediately accosted me, no doubt identifying me as a fellow equine, and hopped into the seat opposite mine. He spat out the handle of his bag. I was masquerading as an eccentric Zebrican explorer at the time, complete with pith helmet and khaki saddlebags.
“G’day, friend,” he garbled. “You goin’ far?”
I looked up. The pony was dressed quite strangely: a headdress connected to a wide cloth neckpiece, and to a cloth covering that fell across both flanks like a saddle. The end appeared to hook around his dock. The whole thing looked most uncomfortable and completely pointless. He also wore a bridle, with a bit in his mouth, which explained the mumbled speech, and had cloth anklets wrapped around all four of his fetlocks.
“I’ll ride this train as far as it will go,” I volunteered. “My plans further than that, I do not know.”
“Really? Where is it you're headed?”
“To the plateau that lies past yonder peak. The creatures of fable that live there I seek.” I was already regretting my choice to dress as a zebra for this leg of the trip. Rhyming was never my strong suit.
The pony frowned. “Which creatures are those?”
“Since tales I've heard, I wish to meet the apes that stand upon two feet.”
“Never heard of them. But then, I'm not from around these parts either.”
I chuckled like the wise old stallion I was playing. “That much is clear from your species and dress. May I ask if that bit causes any distress?”
“This thing?” He nudged it around with his tongue. “Nah, it's fine. You get used to it.”
“I have met many ponies in my travels before, but none dressed as you. Can I ask what it's for?”
The tannoy crackled into life, and a bored female voice said, “Ladies and gentlecreatures, the train has just passed into jackal territory. Please stay alert, and inform the train staff immediately if you see anything concerning.”
“I fear the heat may have affected my brain,” I say. “Did she suggest that jackals might attack the train?”
“Oh, yeah,” said the pony with disconcerting glee. “I'm told there are diamond jackals and diamond fennecs all over this area, especially close to the mountains. They burrow underneath the train tracks and jump up to attack the train as it goes past. There are rocs, too.”
“At least we should have little to fear, should a stray boulder venture near.”
“Nah, mate. I ain't talkin’ rocks, I’m talkin’ rocs. The big birds. Really big. They nest up in the mountains round here and fly down to hunt. I’ve heard a grown roc can pick up a whole railway carriage in its fearsome talons and carry the whole thing back to its nest.”
The other passengers were giving the pony increasingly wary looks as he talked loudly about mortal peril, and I couldn't blame them. His cheerful disregard for our own safety was disconcerting, to say the least.
Our conversation was interrupted by the flap of giant wings, followed by the screeching of metal being torn by enormous talons. A few of the passengers immediately dived out the window or through the door into the next carriage. Others clung to their seat as, with an abrupt lurch, the carriage was lifted off the rails. Gritting my teeth, I contemplated when exactly would be the right moment to shed my current zebra form and fly away.
My companion could be heard whooping over the din. “Aw, yeah!”
As we approach Sugarcube Corner, a pegasus mare is leaving with a basket of muffins held in her hooves and a big grin on her face. Her blank grey coat and yellow mane look like a default infiltration form, of the sort that gets dropped the second a changeling finds a real pony to replace.
She raises a hoof to wave goodbye, nearly drops the basket, swerves to one side to catch them. Her hoof clips the rump of a stallion, who stumbles, steps in a puddle and splashes mud over the dress worn by the mare next to him. She harrumphs, turns tail and strides off.
“Oh, I'm so sorry. I just don't know what went wrong.”
Her voice is unnervingly familiar: it reminds me of someling I used to know back in the Hive. Someling so inept that we lost multiple batches of eggs to her mistakes, so oblivious she counted as an ideological weapon, so derpy that the only reason we kept her in the Hive was to keep her from making an even bigger mess outside it.
But it can't be her. There's no way the clumsiest changeling in all the hives would be sent on a mission, no way she could live successfully undercover in this town in a default form. She had no talent for deception, no acting persona, and her shapeshifting abilities were questionable at best. She would surely have been discovered in days, or else she'd starve soon after.
No. It can’t be the derpy one. I am, I must be, I have to be, the only changeling in town.
The derpy pegasus flies off with her muffins. Purple pushes open the door to the bakery, and I follow her through, banging my head against the top of the door.
I must be getting used to the idea that Ponyville has the highest population of non-ponies anywhere in Equestria, because the sight of the other customers hardly surprises me at all now. Ahead of us in the queue are a little wolf standing on two legs and wearing a waistcoat, another bird-horse-thing with an annoying laugh, a reindeer… buck? Is buck the right word? …a little white pony with a rainbow mane and tail – huh, I guess the horn-and-wings caste isn't all that rare – and a—
“Th– th–”
“Is something wrong, Mr Anonymous?” Purple frowns up at me.
“That's–”
She follows my eyes to the front of the queue. “Oh, that's Lemony Cutewhistle.”
“That's a– a–”
She leans in with a conspiratorial hoof. “Changelings, they're called. But don't talk about it. He gets embarrassed.” The changeling strolls past us carrying a tray in his fangs with a baker’s dozen muffins. He's wearing glasses and appears to be smiling.
They actually have a changeling living openly among them! That means I could have just walked into town in my own true form instead of shifting into this ludicrous creature! What was even the point of all this?
Holding a foreleg, er, hand to my chest, I force myself to breathe slowly and calmly. There's no use fretting. It's too late now to change it. I'm in place, my cover is solid if a little unconventional, and I have a mission to complete.
I just hope being the only ‘human’ in Ponyville doesn't get me into any trouble.
Author's Note
In case they aren't all clear:
References throughout to the Palaververse
Zecora and Spike
Gabby, Sweetie Bot and NyxNopony Special
The friendship students
Discord & Flutterbat
Pupa
Dr Wolf, Silver Quill, Lightning Bliss
Lemony Cutewhistle
...and every anonymous human in Ponyville ever.
