Reshaping History

by Ultra-the-HedgeToaster

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure, Dark, Alternate Universe, Sad, Changelings, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 4654

A disillusioned changeling tells his life story about seeking a better future – with time travel.

"So then I went back in time and assassinated Queen Chrysalis.

Yeah, that did happen. Shut that muzzle of yours, you're only gonna catch flies.

Changed it right back after how well that turned out.

Turns out King Sombra took over the world, again. That damn love-alicorn didn't manage to defeat him. Discord-darn butterfly nonsense again, princess-type didn't do her combat training 'cause she never spent two weeks in a cave.

Sigh... back to the drawing board, it was."

Set in early season 6. First draft originally written before Starlight's season 5 time travel escapades. Entirely unrelated to "A Nation of Love".

Dark and Sad tags for retellings of visits to several apocalyptic timelines in the above narrative style.

Published 2019-03-26 22:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-03-26 22:20:01 UTC

"...Story of my life."

RESHAPING HISTORY

By Ultra the HedgeToaster

This story is available as a "synthesized" audio book:

[click here] - no background music
[click here] - with ambient music loop
[click here] - with alternate ambient music loop

So then I went back in time and assassinated Queen Chrysalis.

Yeah, that did happen.

No, no, I'm not joking. Squashed 'er. Boy, that wasn't a pleasant sight, I tell ya.

...Shut that muzzle of yours, you're only gonna catch flies.

Who'd have thought the almighty Queen could get killed by a rock slide, if the timing was right? The timing was right, of course, spent six jumps ironing out the details.

Changed it right back after how well that turned out.

Turns out King Sombra took over the world, again. That damn love-alicorn didn't manage to defeat him. Discord-darn butterfly nonsense again, princess-type didn't do her combat training 'cause she never spent two weeks in a cave.

Sigh... back to the drawing board, it was.

But I suppose I should start at the beginning, I always forget to do that anymore.

So, my story begins, 'bout 100-something years from now.

Never figured out the exact year, what with sun and moon being controlled by Discord and all.

Yeah, he broke out when the riots started. No more Queen after that, anyway.

I was just a nymph when that happened, so I don't remember much of the rebellion.

Chrysalis was a good military leader, I'll give her that much. But she just never knew what to do after she'd won. Never saw the bigger picture... not outside some hoof-brained scheme to take over the entire world, anyway.

Every grub can tell you ponies still need to make their own food, you can't just lock up every third work-horse that tries to rebel against you.

And of course the ponies would lose trust in each other if every other one of 'em was a changeling guard that might report 'em. How are ya gonna get any love outta that?

Most love-filled land in the world, and she manages to run it into the ground. Forty-seven times.

And she never listens to anything I say – but that came later. Or earlier.

Oh yeah, I'm advising her again. Doesn't need to know I've killed her before. Time-travel is funny like that.

Been staying around for a couple years now, tried a bit more of a hooves-on approach this time around. I'll see what good it does when I return... “home”.

What? I've learned a few things since the last time I played adviser, I can try my hoof at it every other time. Gotta try something new, ya know? Throw some resin at the wall, see what sticks, try again.

Not what they told me when they sent me back – but then, they just figured I'd need to make one or two jumps to fix things.

Not... heh, I honestly don't know anymore. Must've been, what, two, three hundred? Four? Stopped counting after I spent 'couple o' months in the plunder vine jungle.

Plunder vines, they come out of the Everfree Forest. You'll probably get them in a few months. Eh. Your Harmony-elements will defeat them. Or maybe they did that already, I forgot when exactly those pop up.

So anyway, Harmony-elements beat plunder-vines.

Didn't do it that one time, though.

Freakin' forest covered half the continent. Took me an age and a half, just to get out.

Oh, don't give me that look. You ponies were probably fine... Guess pegasi just moved their cloud-cities elsewhere, eh.

What? Unicorns and earth-ponies?

Yeah, those were screwed.

What? What is it now?

No, I meant “fine” in a sense of “survival of the species”-kinda way.

I've seen far worse, and even there, some ponies survived.

But what do you think happens to changelings? When the ponies go down, changelings have it worse.

I've seen... things.

Hives that used to house thousands, abandoned. Changelings gone feral. Ponies that hunted them down like animals...

No, you ponies have it good. Even when megaspells blast your peaceful little Equestria to ashes, you survive.

When Discord roams free, you're his favorite toys. Which means you get his full attention, sure – but it also means you get to live. Discord never breaks his toys...

Even under Tirek's rule, there was still resistance.

Hmm? You want me to talk about that? Huh, sure.

So, Tirek's Empire.

In one word? Dull.

No, not in the “boring” kind of “dull”. The “the entire world's been drained of all its magic”-kinda “dull”. Not jus' ponies, I mean everything. Like, the sky.

...Okay, bad example, I guess Tirek hadn't gotten around to suck up the sun and moon yet.

But empty gray-ish skies with no birds, no nothing, maybe sometimes these thin, sickly looking clouds... gray-ish green grass an' these misshapen trees with no magic everywhere – that jus' ain't natural.

Anyway, now I don't got much clue about biology, never learned more than I needed to know there. But try getting love-energy from ponies what ain't got any magic. It's downright impossible, is what it is!

Three guesses as to what happened to the changelings.

Yeah, you got it in one.

Took me less than five seconds to decide to go back. Took me a lot longer to actually do it.

Did I mention how much magic it takes to cast the spell? How much love-energy it takes to fuel it?

It's a lot.

Can you believe how frustrating it is when you've got ponies all around you, ponies who aren't out to crack your shell, who don't even distrustyou all that much – and you can't feed on them?

Tartarus – they wanted me to help them. 'Cause me, single changeling left in the world, starving, as I was... I still had magic.

Yeah, that face right there. That was my reaction too.

Hmm? You want to know if I helped them?

Bleh, I had just 'nough magic left to lift a horseshoe! Couldn't even keep my disguise up. What do you think I could'a done? Kill Tirek by throwing horseshoes at him? Bah!

I played along, of course.

Oh, don't gimme that look. Don't matter now anyways, that future never happened.

Did them a favor with that one, didn't I?

Besides, I've seen worse.

...Want me to tell you about it? No? Tough luck.

So, there I was. Snow and ice as far as the eye can see, no living thing anywhere, and just the light of the moon to go by. Pretty much everything is flat, just some hills in the distance.

So I start trotting there, for what feels like a day. I look up at the moon, but it never seems to move. Sun never comes up, either.

Already figured your princesses kicked the bucket, and this is what's left.

I finally reach the hills... And guess what? Turns out it's Canterlot.

Snow, high as the highest mountain. Canterlot was probably th' only thing not covered in ice... well, that and Tartarus maybe, I dunno. One place in all Equestria I've never gone to.

So, I walk through the place, everything's of course frozen solid, can't enter most buildings on account of that.

Way the city is organized, if you just go along straight for a while you'll always end up at that big fancy castle somehow.

So, I figure in there is as good a place as any, 'specially since I can still see where the entrance is supposed to be under all that snow.

I go inside, walk around a bit... And to my surprise, there's an alicorn sitting on the throne.

Black as the night, shiny mane like a pony-foal picked too much glitter for their hearts and hooves project.

Looks utterly terrible.

No, no not like that. Hah, she'd frost ya good if ya told her that!

No, frazzled mane, snow on her coat like she hasn't moved in a week, maybe more, wild eyes.

Oh, it was all in the eyes.

She's loco in the coco. Crazy. Off her rocker. Mentally unstable. Clinically insane.

Hasn't seen anyone else in... who knows, she never said.

Thought I was one of her imaginary soldiers, or something like that.

Never a good idea to disagree with someone who can yank the moon from the sky when she's mad.

She almost did that, early on. Think she's been on the verge of doin' that for a while.

I played along after that.

Fun times.

One time, she made me play chess with snow-ponies. No, let me rephrase that. She played chess with me and a bunch of life-size snow-ponies, as the chess-pieces.

Yeah, lots of fun when the enemy knight checkmates you on the head.

And of course, when there's only one living being in the whole world left, ya cain't be picky with where ya get yer love from.

Yupp.

Had to leech off of freakin' Nightmare Loon or Moon or whatever she calls herself each time around.

Always goes on raving about how “it's all Celestia's fault.” Celestia this, Celestia that.

“Nopony loves me, so I destroyed the world, that'll show 'em.” Eh. I mean, don't get me wrong, I kinda feel sorry for the mare, but she, well, destroyed the world! Maybe if she didn't do that, this coulda been the world where everything turns out right! Not that I know, but it might've been!

Darn it all, I'm jus' tryin' to make a future where changelings get to live in peace!

Yeah, nopony loves me neither – not really – but I don't go around destroying the world 'cause of it!

. . .

...What are ya givin' me that look for?

What, you think your precious night-princess couldn't drive Equestria into th' ground like that? Even if she'd been all “nightmare-fied up”?

Hah! Lemme tell you something.

I know her. Oh, do I know her. I got to know her well.

Because I ended up in that same future like twenty more times.

Heck, I can still taste Loony Moon's insecurities whenever I see that moon. Poor crazy mare.

Oh, sure – it wasn't always exactly the same.

Sometimes she sat in this old castle in the Everfree, sometimes she still sat on Canterlot mountain but the city was gone.

This one time, she just sat in the snow in the middle of nowhere. With ice-sculptures of ponies and these little cottage-houses all over the place.

Only knew she was there, 'cause, well, again with the "almost dropping the moon on the world" thing.

To this day, I don't rightly know what the gunk happened there, or why, but I'll never set hoof in Cloudsdale ever again. That place is a minefield. One wrong step, and BAM, it's the apocalypse!

. . .

Hmm? What? Wait, you're complaining about me mixing up... tenses? As in, all school-like and grammar-y?

Hah! Forgive an old 'ling for mixing up his tenses, I've been up and down the time-stream so many times, how d'ya think I'm supposed to tell it? You got some special course on time travel in yer grammar-class in school or somethin'?

Thought so. Pah.

...Where was I? Ah yeah.

Wanna hear a real funny story?

There was one time, where Chrysalis didn't get axed off when Discord came out to play.

Or was it Sombra who axes her off? I think Sombra usually escapes first, then Discord. So it's probably Sombra who does the deed. Not like the draco-what's-it gives a hoot about “Queen Cheesecake” all that much himself, it's jus', after Discord breaks free, Chrysalis usually doesn't stick around for long.

Gets to be on the wrong end of a giant boot, or maybe spends the rest of her days stuck as a rat eating her way out of a labyrinth made of cheese for all I know. Either way she's gone.

Except that one time.

So, after throwing all her armies at him and failing, she comes up with a plan.

Use the Elements o' Harmony.

Yeah, ya heard me right.

Chrysalis thinks she can use them Harmony-elements. Don't ask me, maybe Discord had her brain already muddled.

Doesn't work one bit, of course.

So what's she do? Try to make new Harmony-bearers.

I know, right? I ain't even joking, I got the reports from five different sources.

Gotta be all changelings, o' course. But the craziest thing? Her plan on how to make them all harmony-like.

Element of Loyalty's easy enough. Just find the most loyal drone willing to clip their own wings and then jump off a cliff when the Queen tells 'em to.

Element of Laughter, now that's easy too. Jus' alter a drone so its pheromone-glands produce a laughing-gas toxin. Means they'll be laughing all the time, won't be doing nothin' else though. Will also make anyling inhaling the gas laugh too, so I guess she covered her bases there.

Element of Generosity? Tough call. I think it involved electroshock therapy, until the idea of owning something for themselves left the poor fella writhing on the floor and frothing at the mouth.

Element of Honesty? Ooh, that one's nasty. Made a drone incapable of lying by making 'em unable to think up lies. Got all messed up in the head. Literally.

Element o' Magic – well, that's obviously the almighty Queen herself, being the “most powerful and most magical changeling” and all, and any-ling saying otherwise'll be executed.

Kindness... didn't find anything on that. Big mystery.

Yeah, didn't work. Big surprise.

Then Tirek came along and that's that.

...Could you imagine a world where her plan actually worked, though? I'd love to see that, hah!

Hah. Hah...

Feh...

. . .

. . .

. . .

There... was that one time, in the desert. Don't rightly recall what happened there, princess nearly dropped the sun for good an' roasted half the planet, or maybe that was one o' the ones with the death-spells or somethin'.

Anyway, very, very few folks left. Already been thinking “this is it”, again. No ponies left. No animals, either. No love anywhere.

...When, after six weeks, walkin' through the ruins of some big fancy city, there's suddenly a pony.

Runs at me with a lasso, yelling something fierce, but dear hungry me is so surprised, stallion gets the drop on me anyway.

Knocks me out, ties me up real tight, the whole shtick.

Wake up on a stake, with burning firewood next to me, and stallion's carrying a pot twice his size.

Darn pony was gonna eat me! Can you believe that?

Pony eats Changeling! Now, that'd be a newspaper headline if I ever saw one... not that the place still had newspapers. Or news.

...But I'm getting off track. Maybe 'cause the firewood was an old newspaper stand. And old newspapers. Nothing 'bout what happened there though.

Where was I again? Ah, yes.

So there the stallion is filling what smells like sewage into the pot. Real bad stuff. Not much rain I reckon, but really, is that how I'm gonna kick the bucket? If it's not gonna be the cooking, it'll be the smell.

Stallion gives me a glance, notices I'm awake. And asks me if I can talk.

I say “buck off.”

And it's the darndest thing... that stallion bursts into laughs, gets out his knife... and cuts the ropes.

I give him a nice shiner, but then he puts me in a headlock. Pretty much too hungry to do much about it. Blasted earth-pony strength, am I right?

So anyway. Earth-pony tells me it can go down one of two ways.

Either I calm down and we share a meal, or he ties me up again and lets me cool down somewhere the sun don't shine and he trots off.

Which is pretty darn nice if you think about it, sun's shining pretty hot in that place. But the part about him leaving? Not so much, I need him as food supply. An' something's telling me there ain't much choice I got in what I eat.

So I play along.

Says he's never seen anything like me, never heard of a “change-ling”. Not surprising for me, guessed as much already.

Stallion doesn't care what I look like. Heck, doesn't even care I feed on emotions, 's long as it ain't killing him or don't do no permanent harm. More food for him, he says. Just being pragmatic.

Gotta respect that sorta thinking.

Turns out he's one o' the last from his town. Used to be big, he says, even after the... the whatever happened. But things' been harsh lately, he says. Gotta find a better place to live. Hope there is something like that, still.

Meet back up at the old place in a year or two, share his findings.

He'd been looking for six months. Nothing yet.

Harvest Seeker, that Queen-forsaken fool was the one pony who ever really got me. Didn't approve of messing around with time, but he... got me, ya know?

Stayed there for a year or so. Didn't find nothin' useful. Some folks what are starving too, some griffons with a taste for pony.

Darn... That blasted stallion. I'd have dragged him back in time and shoved him into a cold ice-water river, if I ever could've done that.

But no, that's not how the spell works. No matter how much love I get, that's not what it's been made for. Only two points in time I can go to. Only one passenger. Only works for a changeling who's had their biology messed with. Only works for me.

I tell him about going back. Fixing things. This'll never have happened.

What's he do?

Talks 'bout his granny... Star Spider, or Swirly Sparks, or something. Heck, why can I even remember that?

Gets all philosophical about branches of a time-tree or something. How everything is just a different branch. Pah, yeah, right.

Spouted all kinds of nonsense, his granny, if ya ask a real time-traveler. Must've had some real gunk in her brain, filling his with that rotten flea-bag of lies.

Of course, now his granny never did exist.

And neither did that darn stallion...

. . .

Oh? You believe in that whole tree-of-time nonsense too?

How every future's always happenin' and everythin' we choose, no matter what, there's a place where we did the other thing? That's what you believe??

Oh yeah? Yeah??

What, you wanna know why I don't believe in it? Well, I'll tell you why:

BECAUSE THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A DISCORD-DARNED TREE OF TIME! GET THAT THROUGH YER THICK PONY-SKULL!

THERE JUST ISN'T ONE! THERE CAN'T BE A TREE OF TIME!

BECAUSE IF THERE IS, THEN –

Then –

Then...

Then it was all for nothin'...

. . .

. . .

. . .

There jus' ain't no such thing as a branching time-tree, capisce?!

...Discord-darnit, why can't I jus' get my Tartarus-roasted peace? I've been doing this for... I don't even know how long.

Was young when I started, look at me now.

Chitin's getting thinner. Can't fly like I used to. Still got my disguise-magic, but... if I do this another twenty, thirty times and don't get it right... that's it. That's the end.

You ponies always get it all. Your happy futures are a dime a dozen.

Never spend much time there. Go check the local hive if there's one, see what's up.

Always turns out the same.

We always end up taking the scraps. Hiding away, running from your princesses, always hungry.

Tried to keep us a myth, so ponies don't know what to look for, didn't work. Pony-magic gets better over time, new spells to find us even if they ain't looking to.

Tartarus-brained Queen always finds a way to turn victory into a disaster.

I've got to put in work to make that damned invasion fail but not too badly so she doesn't go mad with her power-fantasies nor her roach-brained revenge schemes!

Tried getting rid of her after taking over Equestria once or twice. Didn't work out so well, local 'lings didn't exactly appreciate my help, jus' turned everything into an even bigger mess even faster.

Changelings always end up taking the scraps.

Sometimes... sometimes I think I oughta just leave it that way. There are worse futures than that.

What? Diploma-what now? Try to... make peace?

Hah! Oh boy.

Tried to get there, once. Looong time ago. Got the entire hive chasing after me for high treason, got ponies chasing me for being born.

Not trying that again.

Only way to do it is to be the one to make the change yourself, no-ling and nopony else'll do it for ya. Can't pull strings from the shadows. Can't be subtle about it.

Too risky.

If I die, or get locked up, or found out what I do by the Queen or your princesses...

If I stop, that's it. Future's frozen in place. No one left to change it.

I've seen the future. I don't like where it goes. Gotta take charge.

What? You want to change the future? You want to be the one to make peace with us?

Hahahahahhaha! Oh, now that's a good one.

You're just saying that so I'll let you go, aren't ya?

Look out, big bad changeling spilled his plans, now he's gonna suck ya dry so you'll tell nopony.

Thought ya could smear honey around my muzzle, didya?

Heh. Heh. Heh...

Well, guess what...

...I'm gonna let you go anyway. 'Cause I'm just nice like that.

Nopony's gonna believe you anyway, and by the time you're running around out there screaming “changeling!” I'm already gone.

Unless you wanna wait for a hundred years until I get back...? No?

Hah, yeah, tell yer grandchildren 'bout the changeling who traveled through time. They'll think it a real hoot, yes they will.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Don't think it'll work out, but... eh. Butterflies and storms and all that.

Hay, jus' being here for a while's stirred things up already.

Like... I say somethin' to Queen-almighty, Queen talks to love-princess during the invasion, bam, whole Crystal Empire's got a dragon obsession suddenly and Princess Skyla's now Princess Fluffle-Heart or somethin'.

Prob'ly helped I talked her into waiting with th' second invasion 'till she can get all th' princesses in one go. A plan like that'll keep 'er occupied. Not that it'll work. Eh.

Ah well. ...Good talk.

The door closed. The pony was alone.

The pony ran into the street, stumbling several times as their hooves snagged on the rope still wrapped around parts of their body. Frantically, the pony looked around – but the changeling was gone, of course.

“Oh horse apples,” the pony thought. What would happen, if the changeling cast his time spell?

Panic set in. Any moment now, the entire world might just... vanish!

What to do now? Could the time traveler be stopped?

Call the guard?

No, even just finding the nearest guard would take too long. The changeling would have already vanished!

Make a racket and scream for help? No, that'd just cause chaos, making it easier for the changeling to disappear.

Find the changeling by themself? ...How? Where to even start looking?

There! A flash of light, in the corner of their eye! Quick!

The pony galloped, fast as their hooves would carry them, turning the corner – just a tourist couple, with a camera.

Ears perking up – a clatter down the road!

…Just some colts playing with a ball, and a toppled trash can.

Where's the changeling? Where's the time traveler?

How much time is left? A glance at a nearby clock.

...It's been at least twenty minutes since the changeling left, if the clock in the old basement was right.

The changeling said he'd leave immediately.

Something's not adding up.

“Calm. Keep calm. Panicking won't help. You need to think about this.”

Deep breaths. Positive thoughts.

A moment of peace.

The changeling said he'd leave immediately for the future. That in itself wouldn't destroy the world. But, following his arrival, he will… would? judge that world... probably find it lacking... and return to a point in time that lay years in the past now.

That is what would destroy the world, and replace it.

Unless...

The world might not be destroyed until he actually goes back to change it. That'll be in a century. There is time to prepare, then – and face the challenges this future may hold.

Or perhaps – there is a branching tree of time after all.

The pony relaxed, realizing the world wasn't going to end. At least, not today. Hopefully not for a long time. Hopefully not ever.

Or, a third option to consider – the changeling did not return from the future. Either his luck ran out and there was no turning back – or maybe, just maybe, his quest finally came to an end.

Maybe he found the future he was looking for.

Author's Note

Special thanks to FanOfMostEverything and Reese for editing, as well as Green-Kirby both for brainstorming as well as providing the original inspiration for this story. :twilightsmile:

The backstory behind this is actually pretty ironic.

For context: I don't particularly like reading 'dark', especially with pony.

I don't shy away from it entirely – but a My Little Pony fic has to try harder to get my interest if it carries a 'dark' tag.

And, for the longest time, I was reluctant to write 'dark' as well.

To drive the point home: The idea for this story was originally conceived in a discussion with Green-Kirby on deviantArt on November 10th, 2013. That's before season 4 had even started.

It was a unique, original idea.

Sure, there'd been plenty a tale of alternate timelines where Nightmare Moon had won, but this was a new spin on the concept of time travel in MLP.

I liked the idea. I just didn't feel comfortable writing it.

I even gave it up as a prompt in the Idea Exchange for somepony else to write, like I tend to do with many of my passing story ideas.

Fast forward 2 years later, November 2015. I decided to just give it a shot anyway.

...I finished like 70% of this story in one go. :rainbowderp:

Then three weeks after I had finally started writing, the season 5 finale happened.

You know, the one where Starlight Glimmer goes back in time, and Twilight pays a visit to a number of alternate timelines.

Yeah. Go figure.

Kinda lost my interest after everypony else was already playing with the exact same concept, and this story wasn't exactly original anymore.

...I find it highly ironic that, in the same moment this story went into a coma, the inspiration for “A Nation of Love” was born. Two stories that, on the surface, may seem similar – both dealing with changelings in the future and alternate timeline(s) – when in reality, they couldn't be more different from each other, even down to the tone and what the 'dark' tag means for each.

This story got buried in my backlog of unpublished, unfinished stories I'm occasionally working on, but I kept coming back to it every once in a while. It just didn't have a particularly high priority - and for a long time, I simply wasn't happy with it. There are a couple of logical holes in this story, and originally I didn't quite like the ending – but the success of “A Fragile Nightmare” showed me that a story doesn't always have to be 100% perfect for people to enjoy it.

So here it is, nearly 5½ years after its original conception. :derpytongue2:

...I envy other writers for their monthly output. :applejackconfused::twilightblush: