The (un)Life and Times Of Specter Shift

“Princess, why is this pony so important to you?” rumbled the Captain of the Night Guard beside her, eyes darting around in the cool night air for anything, anything at all, especially the unexpected.

Aura Borealis always expected the unexpected. When you lived in a society where one third of your species could shoot lasers from their face, another third could fly and the last third could get away with a lot more because you were too busy paying attention to the ones who could fly and split atoms with a headbutt, expecting the unexpected was to be expected. Captain Aura Borealis was, however, acceptably exceptional at unexpected expectations.

It’s what made him a good captain.

“The pony we seek is a necromancer, Captain, a pony I have not seen in many eons.”

“Necro-“ The Captain paled.

‘Oh, ye princesses, what sick, sick pony would… with dead ponies?!’

“Of course princess.” Aura Borealis nodded furiously. “This pony, without a doubt, must be stopped.”

“Stopped?”  Princess Luna twisted in genuine shock, “What makes you think I would wish to stop this pony?!” She regained a little of her composure. This was nothing new to her guards; Whilst the Princess of the Night tried her best to maintain an air of the utmost placid dignity-

Well, she tried her best, that’s all that needs to be said on the matter.

“You don’t want to stop this pony?” The Captain’s shock matched Luna’s and then some.

“Quite the contrary,” Luna murmured in confusion, almost half to herself, “I wish to enlist this pony’s services.”

“Princess, that’s disgusting!” The Captain shrieked like a filly.

“Captain, I know there are many ponies that condemn such a practice, but there have been many noble practitioners in Equestrian history. I am afraid that We are now in desperate need of one.”

The Captain’s open mouth caught a substantially large moth that had been too cumbersome to avoid the speeding royal chariot. He didn’t even blink.

“Princess!” the hardened veteran, esteemed warpony, decorated commander’s voice cracked like schoolfoal in puberty. “We are all very aware of the rumours that you are quite frigid, yes, but is this truly the answer? I mean, everyone’s into something I guess, but come now Princess, there’s using a feather and then there’s using the whole chicken.”

Luna pondered this for a moment.

“What do those rumours have to do with anything captain” she mused.

“Well… You’re enlisting the aid of an… a… necromancer.” He whispered back furiously.

“But why- Oh.” Luna blushed furiously, a coughing fit overcoming her, “Oh!”.

“You see, Princess, why-“

“Captain.” Luna explained calmly, fighting down the rising mortification, “I do believe you have mistaken necromancy for… something quite lewd and perverse, I’m afraid. The suffix that I believe you were looking for is actually 'philia', a practice I do indeed condemn whole-heartedly.”

Captain Borealis let out a sigh of relief so hearty that the moth ended up flying right out to freedom. Once more neither he nor Luna blinked.

“You do not know how relieving it is for me to hear that, Princess.” he stated emphatically.

“Yes, well, I now completely understand your earlier-“ Luna paused. “Who says I am frigid?!”

Specter arose groggily, his back stiff and sore. Wilhelm had curled up in his lap hours before, the small book on the floor beside him. The last candle had melted to a pitiful nub long ago, thin tendrils of smoke wisps visible in the moonlight filtering through the cottage’s picture window.

Well, the moonlight and the fiery conflagration. Specter assumed that was why Wilhelm was whimpering in his lap, nudging him from his fitful sleep, anyway.

For that matter he assumed it was the bizarre changeling. Otherwise it would have been an ordinary feather boa in his lap whimpering and nudging him from his sleep.

That would have just been weird.

“What is that?” it asked him, shrinking back from its own words. Oh, thank Celestia, it was Wilhelm. He didn’t want to be attacked in his sleep by animated designer clothing.

Not again.

“An explosion,” Specter sighed, “Probably not that far away, judging by the smell.”

“An explosion?” Wilhelm asked in a voice that expressed that, if he had eyes, they would be wide open right now.

“Not all that uncommon in the Everfree I’m afraid.” Specter nodded. “Not everything can feed on love, you know. The creatures in here get hungry, too.” He chuckled, briefly, before continuing, “unfortunately, though, the only things they have to eat in here are the other Everfree forest creatures.”

“Oh!” Wilhelm popped into Changeling form, well, sort of. He was his original shape, if Changelings could even be said to truly have one, but he was small enough to hide in Specter’s pocket.

He suspected this was not entirely coincidental.

Wilhelm also looked quite pale, short shudders rocking his tiny body.

“So something just ate…  Something else?”

Specter nodded sadly. “I’m afraid so. It’s the main reason not many ponies come out this way, after all.”

“So something just died then.” Wilhelm continued sadly.

Specter shuddered. “If they’re lucky.”

The tiny changeling turned even paler, and slightly green.

“Are you going to be sick?” Specter softly  asked, almost afraid talking loudly would simply blow the small creature right off his lap, “Do you need me to get you a bucket? Maybe a thimble?”

“No, I’ll be fine, I swear!”

“I- Well, alright,” Specter shook his head dubiously, if you think so.”

The tiny changeling pouted. “I do think so. So there.”

Specter couldn’t help but chuckle at the tiny form, forehooves folded defiantly in front of its chest, lips curled.

Oblivious to Specter, for once, Wilhelm’s eyebrows furrowed. A deep, thoughtful hum escaped the chitinous lips as he tapped a tiny hoof against an even tinier chin.

“Can you talk to them?”

Specter raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, the food, or used to not be food, or whatever. Could you talk to them?”

Specter’s other eyebrow joined its twin, where they engaged in a furious debate. Of course, eyebrows being eyebrows, this simply took the form of twitchy rustling to the outside observer.

He rubbed a hoof to the back of his head, massaging the nape of his neck, as he thought about it.

“Well, I guess I might be able to. Maybe. I think?” He mused, half to Wilhelm but equally to himself. He continued on, hoof rubbing faster, eyebrows dancing to a different disco (Honey!), as he considered the request.

“I mean, I don’t know who or what just, er, ‘participated in a necessary part of the food chain’,” Specter mulled, “but they’re close enough, I think, that I don’t need to know specifically. Sort of like- Hmm, how do I explain this?” His back right hoof started tapping to an unheard rhythm, building with unreleased nervous energy looking for an outlet. His mane was knotting in the spot the hoof rolled over it to massage the swelling thoughts.

“It’s like fishing.” The grey stallion nodded to himself, relaxing. “That’s as good as any way to put it. “Okay: So,  normally, I’d want to catch a specific fish. Let’s call that fish Bob.”

“Bob is a good name.” Wil nodded seriously.

“Indeed. Well! If you want to catch that fish you need to use the right bait and the right lure, right?”

“Why not the left lure?” The changeling’s head cocked to the side.

“Because using the left lure instead of the right would be wrong.” He said with an absolutely straight face. The changeling nodded again, as if this was the most reasonable response in the world.

“Anyway, to do that you need to know what you’re looking for before you can cast, right? Well, this would be different. I’d be fishing by throwing in a net and hoping it isn’t so small, or so tenacious, good word that by the way, that it slips through. Also, you sort of have to throw it when you know a fish is there, see?”

“How do you know so much about fishing anyway?” Wil asked, clambering up onto Specter’s shoulder, “I thought ponies were vegetarians.”

“Well, we are,” Specter shrugged, ignoring the tiny mountaineer scaling Mount Speckles, “But some of our pets aren't. Lucky for me I got a pet that can take care of itself, isn't that right?”

The changeling didn’t reply. He simply became a rather comfortable fisherponies hat, complete with all the regalia.

“You’re mad as a hatter, aren’t you?” the stallion laughed, “Pun most definitely intended. Now, let’s see if I actually can, er, ‘cast a net’, so to speak.”

Specter concentrated, focusing all his thought and attention on the nearest skull, a mare’s, resting above the fireplace. Normally he didn’t mind about gender but, in this case, a stallion’s simply wouldn’t have fit on the marble mantle.  He hoped that his soon-to-be-guest didn’t mind that much. For some visitors it was a bit of a sore point.

Other’s seemed to think being in the opposing gender’s skull, however, felt right. Specter was more than happy to oblige them that, to each their own.

What right does a hermit in the woods have to judge, after all?

He derailed that train of thought, one that would usually lead him to hours in his small library for his books’ warm, forgiving embraces, the calming turn of the pages, but instead he focuses on making his new friend (Hat?) happy for the moment.

He took slow even breaths as he shut his eyes, still seeing the skull clear as crystal imprinted into the back of his eyelids, as the familiar throbbing in his temples pulsed once, twice-

” Specter! I’m so glad I found you!”

The stallion fell out of his comfortable chair, scrabbling backwards in terror.

No! Nonononono. No. Not again, please Celestia, anything but-

“ Specter, what’s wrong? It’s me, Twilight!”

Specter simply stared at the skull on the mantle, tears in his eyes.

“I know. And I am so sorry.”

A fisherpony’s hat drifted slowly to the floor, swept up by an unseen breeze.

“There! I sense his presence! He has just revealed his position to us! We can still sense the use of his ne-“

“Princess, I am standing right next to you, you do realize?!”

“We, echem, I apologize, captain.” Luna’s blush was visible under the bright moonlight.

“I’m just going to assume that was an apology, Princess, and I assure you it’s quite alright!” Aurora massaged his throbbing ears. “Frankly, you could have been ordering an apple pie and I wouldn’t know better!”

“Why are you shouting with… me?” Luna caught herself at the last moment.

“Because I think you ruptured my eardrums again!”

“Oh! I mean, oh, I mean… Oh, ponyfeathers…” Luna sighed miserably. A faint aura surrounded the deafened pony’s ears and, as he swallowed, a sharp ‘pop’ brought all the ambient sound rushing back to him.

“Frankly, your majesty,” He opined, “I don’t think I would be appreciating how beautiful the larks are singing tonight otherwise.”

“You only truly appreciate what you have when it is gone forever…”

“Princess?” Aurora barely managed to conceal his confusion behind the iron helmet, “My hearing isn’t gone forever? You just gave it back?”

“Hmm?” Luna snapped out of a reverie the guard hadn’t even noticed she’d been in, “Oh, my humblest apologies, Captain, we were, how do you say, ‘off with the fae?’”

“That would be ‘fairy’s’, princess. You’re getting better at modern colloquialisms, though, it seems.”

He watched as the simple compliment caused Luna’s entire face to light up. He decided not to press any further into the cause of her rather abrupt melancholy. It was so rarely you could see Luna smile, he hadn’t the heart to make it one time less.

The captain watched as Luna’s eyes snapped forward to a patch of forest, thin wisps of smoke emerging from-

Well, buck me sideways with a brick, is that a cottage?

“Charioteers! Take us down!” Luna commanded.

“Oh dear, oh dear oh dear ohdearohdear-“

The changeling, back to his original shape and size, ogled the skull.

“And who might you be?” it asked. “Normally I wouldn’t trust a changeling, of course, but any friend of Specter is a friend of mine.” It paused. “I think.”

Wilhelm gaped at the skull, which coughed nervously in response. Specter frantically ran around the room muttering incoherently.

“Err… do you want to be friends?” another nervous smile, slightly hopeful, replaced the rictus grin.

“Friends?” Wilhelm stared curiously.

“Be friends on your own time Wil,” Specter yelled, “We need to save Twilight now and it’s all my fault.”

“How is your fau- NGH!” Wil was yanked firmly by the bonelike scruff of his neck.

“I know you’re a hat guy, but can you be like, a coat?” Specter paused in his frantic fumblings, “Please?”

“Cloaking device activated!” Wil decreed, jumping onto Specter’s back and snuggling into his mane.

“Err, Wil?”

“Oh! Right!” and with that the hard, heavy weight on his back became a comfortable, form fitting hooded cloak.

“Is there any reason in particular, Wil, that the cloak has bunny ears?”

The cloak simply vibrated its own content reply.

“Don’t worry, Twilight. I’m coming.” Specter said softly, softer than the little cotton bunny tail Wil had thought to add for some unknown reason.

“Why would I be worried?”

“No reason!” Specter answered all too hastily, massaging his temples until the familiar pressure alleviated.

The skull fell silent once more.

Specter charged the front door, slamming open deadlock after deadbolt after chain latch, and barrelled out.

Right into the Princess of the Night.

“Necromancer! We meet at last. It is time for you to answer t-“

“Sorry, I’m sure that’s all very interesting,” Specter yelled as he hooked his front right hoof behind Luna’s front left knee and pressed his head into the base of her neck on his left, pulling it across through to his right, effectively Ju-Ditzy flipping the royal Princess of the night, “But I don’t have time for this right now, Princess!”

Specter galloped off. Regrets would come later. For now, he just tried to outrun the thought that he had just-

Oh dear.

Meanwhile, sprawled upon her back, Luna focused two eyes onto Aurora Borealis, who was staring at her with a contorted expression, not sure whether to be horrified or laugh his plot off. He really didn’t want to laugh, there was nothing funny about a scrawny little stallion sending the giant alicorn flying head over hooves.

Okay, he supposed it was a little funny.

“Was it something we said?” Luna mumbled at the fuzzy guard. ‘Please, captain, stand still, it’s hard to count all of you when you’re upside down like that.

“I’ll just, ah, get some ice from the chariot.” He replied diplomatically.

As he walked past the white picket fence gate back to the Chariot, the captain heard a strange, gravelly voice behind him.

When he turned around he couldn’t see anything other than a rather dizzy looking alicorn.

He shrugged. He swear he could have heard somepony say “Why did I ever teach him that?”, but all he could see was a little lawn gnome by the mailbox.