Salvation | Rebirth

After the excitement of the heavy blizzard on the first day of winter, now snowflakes sprinkled from the sky, falling slowly in the stillness of the air. Within days, the snow had transformed everything, hiding the variety of autumn colors underneath a soft and smooth blanket of pure white. It sparkled even underneath the gray uninviting-looking cloudy skies, although everyone was grateful for the cloud cover. Without it, many would have to wear sunglasses in order not to squint all the time due to the reflected glare of the sun.

Wild was alone, walking through the snow all by himself, enjoying the crisp morning air. His steps left their marks, disturbing the smoothness of snow as he moved. His fur, surprisingly to him, provided good enough insulation that prevented the lower areas of his legs from becoming wet.

Winter, a time of wonder and calm, or at least that was the idea behind it that Wild remembered from his childhood. Especially in heavy snowfall, even the busiest city grew quieter, and this temporary peace was enough for him then to calm down himself.

He was now at peace, as much as he could be with everything that had happened. Days were slowly turning into weeks, and while there was trouble on the horizon, there was hope that it would pass by him. He suspected - feared - that the Crystal Empire situation would somehow involve him, and this anxiety remained quietly simmering deep inside him.

Princess Luna, he knew, was away to help the Empire recover. She would also be acting as a translator - Crystal Empire not only spoke a different dialect, but it was from over a thousand years ago, and there were only two ponies in the entirety of Equestria that could still speak it. Plenty of similarities remained, however, which would certainly prove helpful even in the short term. Of course, certain spells would be useful for proper translation, but they were rather complex and largely depended on specifics - there was no general translation spell that could be applied to all languages at the same time. From Wild had learned about them, translation spells were almost always including exactly two languages, one established dialect of each. There were even specific accents people who used translation spells gained, which were part of their subconscious efforts to be understood better through the said spells.

Wild wondered if his own assistance would be requested if, for example, humans had somehow gotten in contact with Equestria. He spoke two human languages rather well, although he had not had the chance to practice either of them since he came to Equestria. In truth, he did not want to interact with humanity again, so he hoped this sort of situation would never come to pass.

He made his way from the Royal Orphanage building to the nearby woods. He could spot some marks on the snow - perhaps from a fox? A dog? Maybe a rabbit? He was no tracker, and his hunting for food that he had had to go through was more about digging in the trash than trying to catch a living being and butcher it. Whatever marks on the snow were, he was only sure they were not made by hooves.

He stopped, inhaled, and then slowly exhaled a cloud of vapor, watching it as it drifted upwards, slowly but surely dispersing above him. He briefly wondered how it was that a person could breathe out both cold and hot air. Was it only about the speed? Was it about the pressure? It was likely the latter, he thought - no matter how fast he breathed out with a mouth open wide, it still came out warm, and the other way around was true. He spent some time testing this, breathing on one of his front legs, feeling slightly silly but not caring one bit.

Wild looked over where a pile of snow bricks took space between two nearby trees, forming a wall. Some other snowy fortification in various states were scattered around the makeshift snowball battlefield. The corners of his mouth lifted upwards in a small smile as he remembered that second day battle. It was nice feeling like a child again, existing in the moment as he avoided being hit and threw his own snowballs. He even played up his own hits, falling dramatically whenever a snowball struck him, even giggling here and there. He had not had time or desire or ability to do this kind of thing since... quite some time ago.

Wild shook his head slightly to get rid of the snow in his mane, which resulted in some of his fur hairs floating away as well, making his surroundings ever so slightly more blue. He sneezed then as one of the hairs found its way into his nostrils. This was one of the things he was growing to dislike about a pony body - shedding. When humans shed, it wasn’t especially noticeable, but when a pony did...

Ponies shed like crazy when winter came, as if someone flicked a switch. One day, all was fine, but once first snow fell, the fur was coming off quickly, replaced by longer and thicker fur. And now, everyone’s fur was all over the Royal Orphanage, from the dorms to the hallways to all the various rooms and to the cafeteria. The cooks themselves were entirely covered by white bodysuits, leaving not a single part of them visible. Everyone else was banned from the kitchen entirely, and airlocks were established between the kitchen and everything else. It was rather obvious that no one wanted everyone’s hair in their food, certainly not before it was ready.

Everyone was seemingly working overtime to clean up all the stray fur, using rather bulky yet apparently very modern vacuum cleaners to clean not only the floors, the walls, and somehow even the ceilings, but also each other whenever possible. The winter war against the fur was certainly ongoing nearly everywhere, and getting threatened with a vacuuming was not at all uncommon for ponies who bothered with their own fur less than others.

In truth, Wild was growing rather tired of seeing his bedsheets gaining a more and more obvious blue tint as more time passed. Artful’s bed was also getting to the same state.

The best and only solution to the shedding problem was brushing, brushing, and more brushing. The faster the old fur was removed, the better. Wild and Artful thus took to helping each other, spending much of their time together getting brushed all over. After every session, they collected as much of the fur as they could, though not all of it, and threw it out. There was enough fur that, in theory, it might have been possible to make another Wild and Artful out of it.

“Each damn winter,” Artful grumbled, and Wild tried not to smile. For some reason, Artful was absolutely adorable when he did that, “I can’t even paint because I could sneeze, and then fur would be everywhere, including, you know, my paint. And paint is sticky. Why hasn’t anyone invented non-sticky paint? It’s not like shedding is a new problem, right?”

“Mmh,” Wild hummed as he brushed Artful. The pegasus was lying on the floor, wings spread out, and Wild used multiple brushes with his magic to help him with his fur. Wild could shape his magical hands into brushes and combs, but holding physical examples of them was easier, allowing him to focus on using more than two hands at a time to hold things. It was somewhat mind-boggling at first, but now he was getting used to, essentially, having double the amount of hands compared to before. This made him wonder, would he be able to add even more hands in the future? He wasn’t sure he was made for this kind of multitasking.

Fortunately for him, there was another helper - Jade. They have never had any shedding issues, naturally, considering that their true form did not have any fur. Their pony forms, while being physically present as the real thing, did not shed. Jade was there with Wild and Artful, though only as a friend and not a lover. As to how it happened, it was slightly awkward.

Jade had stopped going around as a pony entirely, though now that they were open about being a changeling, they were careful to stay with friends at all times if possible. While it was unlikely that anyone would want to start a fight with Jade, they explained that they could feel a certain amount of hostility from others, and so they wanted to play it safe. Wild did not doubt them for a moment - he had felt it too.

“Um, Wild, Artful,” Jade said during one of their meetings, “You two, um... you know how we changelings feed, right? I mean, what we eat.”

Both of them nodded - changelings, generally speaking, consumed positive emotions, and the nourishment they gained depended on how strong the emotion was, and the whole thing was a combination of different spectra related to the kinds of emotions and their various strengths. Emotions, to changelings, was something that radiated outwards from beings, and if changelings were around, or especially if the emotions radiated towards them, they could consume them and thus grow. One of the most desired emotions was, naturally, love, which in itself was a combination of various different things like acceptance and understanding and joy and wonder and some other, subtler things.

“So, I can... um, feel the, uh, emotions between you,” Jade continued, “Can I... be around sometimes? Your emotions are, um... delicious?”

Artful grinned, blushed, and nodded in agreement. Wild thought the whole situation was a bit weird, but then he was in a weird world, so he nodded as well. Naturally, there was a stipulation that Jade would not be around the two of them when they were being especially intimate, and it was something that Jade proposed themselves. With boundaries established, Jade became a more common sight with the two of them.

Alongside Jade came their sibling, who did not have a name that could be spoken by non-changelings, as they didn’t even know the language. Changeling language was of noises and pheromones, one that was next to impossible to properly translate. Just the spoken language alone without pheromones was dull and flavorless and lacked emotions, or that was the understanding of it. Jade’s sibling still needed much nourishment before they could be strong enough to survive on their own, and they had also put in some effort to learn the language, although neither Wild nor Artful participated much in it.

Jade’s sibling stuck close to Jade at all times, like a shadow, even sleeping in the same dorm. In time, with their permission, Jade revealed to Wild and Artful what was going on.

“I guess the closest word that describes my sibling’s role is a worker,” they said, “Workers maintain hives and things inside them. Chrysalis-” Jade steadily refused to call her queen “-took the entire hive to attack Canterlot, so that’s why my sibling was there. Workers just don’t learn the language and can’t disguise themselves. Well, it’s not like they can’t at all, but they’re never taught. Every changeling is, I mean, equal, at least in abilities and all that. Chrysalis just liked her stupid hierarchy.”

Jade, in general, did not think much of hierarchies. However, they did not voice much of their dislike in public. After all, Equestria had a hierarchy of its own, long and established, with the princesses on top and everyone else below them. While none of the princesses was anything like Chrysalis, it was clear to Wild that Jade did not find it acceptable. Wild disagreed with them - if anyone was to be at the top, the princesses were the best choice he had ever seen. However, none of it was spoken, and so the possible argument about it did not arise in truth.

Back to the current day, Jade made a point about making non-sticky paint.

“If paint didn’t stick to fur, then it wouldn’t stick to brushes, right?” they pointed out, “Because brushes are made of hairs.”

“...You’re right,” Artful admitted sheepishly, “I kinda didn’t think about it.”

Wild snorted softly, suppressing a laugh. That point was glaringly obvious. He, naturally, did not admit that the said point did not immediately come to him.

“It’s so unfair that you don’t have to deal with that,” Artful told Jade.

“You’re soft and squishy, and be glad for that. When you get a cracked carapace, that’s a lot worse than shedding fur,” they said in response, “It takes forever to heal. And you gotta use the goo to hold it in place.”

“The goo?” Wild asked.

“You know how honey is just bee vomit?”

“Uuh...” he did not know that.

“So, we changelings can make stuff sorta like that,” Jade continued their explanation, “Except it has more uses than just a food slurry, at least for us.”

“Changeling goo is edible,” Artful nodded, and Wild was fairly certain that what he said was not a sentence that he ever wanted to hear. Though, wasn’t that racist or some magical equivalent of it? Making that goo was just a part of being a changeling, so why would it be gross at all? Wild decided it was wiser not to voice his thoughts about that, “But it’s also, like, a building material. Or at least one kind of goo is. Jade, aren’t there different kinds?”

“Well, yeah,” Jade said, “It’s all similar and you can eat everything, but you wouldn’t really want to. Wouldn’t really taste right.”

If someone told Wild he would be discussing goo from sapient equine-like bugs - or bug-like equine, he wasn't sure - in the future, he would have deemed them insane. As it was now, he wondered whether he perhaps had gone mad at some point and started imagining all the impossible things that his mind could come up with.

In truth, his life had gone wildly off the rails since he... died. Some of it was unwelcome, and yet a lot of it not only helped him survive but also beginning to thrive. Perhaps he would need to focus more on the fact that he was talking about things with his friends over the fact that there were odd and strange things all around him now.

Wild listened with half an ear as Artful and Jade got into a good-natured argument about benefits and downsides of being a pony or a changeling. He decided not to speak, instead simply basking in the presence of his friends.

He would take changeling goo any day over what his life was before. It was not a choice he ever expected to make, but it was one he was more than willing to embrace.