How to Wear Your Changeling
Scabbard Bloom grunted as she put more pressure onto the rag whilst polishing a particularly stubborn patch of tarnish on her armour.
Having recently graduated into the ranks of the Royal Guard, she was expected to have it all spruced up and presentable for duty the following week, which normally wouldn’t be much of a problem for well-worn sets of armour hoofed down from their previous owners, but this particular set had been languishing in the quartermaster’s storage for so long that her cleaning could almost certainly be classified as a mass-extinction event for the rust mites living in it.
Not that it was her fault or anything; she couldn’t help being a bit on the skinny side for an earth pony, and there was no way she was going to serve in pegasus armour. Too lightweight for frontline combat, and the empty wing holes would just look weird.
Unfortunately, that also left her dragging home the only earth pony set that came in her size, in order to personally hammer the rusty plates back into shape.
She sighed and leaned back into her couch, heedless of the sweat soaking through her coat and into the fabric. After glancing at the ticking grandfather clock, which showed ten minutes to noon, she silently bemoaned all the socialising she was missing on account of the emergency maintenance.
“Okay, that’s enough self-pity,” she muttered as she dabbed the rag with another spot of polish.
Time lost meaning as she went back to work, eliminating one stain after another.
Yep, that’s me. Scabbard Bloom, hammerer of dents, slayer of stains!
Then, the doorbell rang.
Frowning, Scabby hopped off the couch and trotted towards the door, ignoring the pins and needles in her rump and hind legs as her body restored proper blood circulation.
A wall-eyed pegasus mare beamed at her when she opened the door.
“Package for Miss Scabbard Bloom!” she said.
Scabby blinked as the mare bounced an enormous parcel off her back and onto the doormat, where it produced a heavy, clanking thump when it landed. She stared at the postage sticker for several seconds, then turned to the mailmare and frowned.
“Umm, I didn’t order this. Who’s it from?”
The mailmare checked her clipboard. “Hmm… Doesn’t say.”
Scabby blinked.
The mailmare blinked as well, still smiling.
“So, uh…”
“Maybe it’s a secret admirer!”
“But that’s just…”
Her words trailed off.
Despite her concerns, she couldn’t help feeling a tiny upwelling of excitement at the prospect of opening it. The last time she’d gotten that feeling was at Hearth’s Warming before she’d left home for college, and that was long before guard training. It taunted her with hazy memories of sitting in front of a toasty fireplace, squealing as she and her siblings unwrapped their presents and then bragged about what they got.
Wouldn’t hurt to take a peep, right?
Scabby shook her head. “You know what? Never mind. I’ll take it.”
Worst-case scenario, it wasn’t meant for her and she could always return it to the post office. They shouldn’t have too much trouble returning it to the sender.
After getting her to sign the papers, the mailmare gave her a salute and flew off, humming a lively tune to herself.
Scabby hauled the parcel into her apartment, noting that it weighed almost as much as a full set of armour. Oddly enough, it also had several pencil-wide holes crudely punched into its sides, and she briefly wondered if there was supposed to be an animal inside. A quick sniff told her that there wasn’t anything distinctly organic in there, though. Just a vaguely musty smell.
She set it down on the floor in front of her couch and wasted no time in slashing through the sealing tape with a blade.
Every spare inch of space within was stuffed with crumpled newspaper, and her eyebrows shot up when digging out a few wads of them revealed gleaming metal, polished to a glorious, golden sheen. It looked like a full set, and of the same colour as her designated uniform, too, minus the part of being in dire need of a good touch-up.
At first, she thought that the quartermaster had found a better suit and sent it to her, but she quickly dismissed the idea of the Royal Guard mailing uniforms to anypony. You went to the armoury and collected your gear yourself. Everypony knew that.
So, who sent this to me?
She didn’t have any special connections with her superiors, and although she had a perfectly functional, professional relationship with her peers, she couldn’t exactly call any of them friends—certainly not to the point where they might send her gifts completely out of the blue.
No letters or notes were to be found in the box. Not after she’d emptied it, and certainly not within any of the crumpled balls of paper she bothered to straighten out.
She felt her eyes drawn to the armour she’d placed on the coffee table. At first glance, it turned out to be just the four hoof guards short of a full set, but it still shamed her own armour with its pristine condition.
However, on closer inspection, it also differed from standard gear in its construction; she realised that it offered better protection with the inclusion of upper-leg guards.
When she lifted up the helmet for inspection, other parts came up with it. It had straps and buckles linking separate plates in unusual places, and every one of them seemed to be built around a central cord, like a metal spine of short, interlinked rods that ran from the base of the helmet, down under each neck place, through the saddle and down to the tail guard. No amount of fiddling would separate them, and each segment of the ‘spine’ looked like it was joined to the next by ball bearings and sockets instead of screws or rivets.
In spite of a tiny part of her brain warning her that something was suspiciously off about the whole thing, a larger part of her brain kept egging her on about how good she would look in brand-new armour, as opposed to the old set she’d been issued.
“Oh, why the heck not?”
Putting it on took a little bit of creative thinking, but after several minutes of twisting and turning, she managed to wriggle into it like it was a metal-plated onesie.
After tightening the belly straps, she got up and did a brisk trot around her living room to get a feel for the weight.
Her ears flattened a little when she felt some of the straps chafe against her hide, and many of the plates wobbled way too much for her liking. They didn’t move with her so much as sway and jangle in delayed response to her movement, with their own separate momentum. She didn’t have her full range of movement when she stretched and twisted, and some of the under-padding wasn’t touching her, either.
If she jumped or shook herself, she had no doubt that she would clank like a box of brass instruments.
Scabby sucked in a breath through her teeth and sighed.
Too big. Figures…
But on a whim, she decided to trot another circle, and she blinked when she realised that the armour felt a lot snugger than before. The plates didn’t clank and sway, the straps didn’t chafe, and the padding hugged her form properly. And on the third round, the weight felt evenly and comfortably distributed across her whole body, almost like a second skin, rather than a janky collection of plates dangling from her hips and shoulders. Her head certainly didn’t bounce around inside the helmet like a loose nut anymore.
“Hey, that’s actually not bad…” she murmured.
Scabby stretched like a cat and contorted with every standard guard form in the training manual, marvelling at the sudden, inexplicable improvement in flexibility. She performed a couple of practice bucks and leapt over the couch, tumbling into a roll upon landing before coming to a halt with a wide, battle-ready stance. She even followed up with a somersault for good measure, landing perfectly balanced on all fours with a solid thump.
Scabby whistled. “Wow.”
Only a few of her peers were currently able to execute those moves flawlessly, and she’d never been one of them. Usually, she’d stumble upon landing or wobble to the side when rolling, but the armour almost seemed to give her a supernatural sense of balance on top of its unusual flexibility.
Had they enchanted the armour? Physical enhancements were expensive and rare – certainly not the kinds of things to be spared for regular soldiers. At the very least, it must’ve had some kind of innate magic that’d allowed it to self-adjust to fit her so perfectly. In comparison, the standard gear only came with cosmetic enchantments to make everypony’s coats, manes and tails match their respective regiments.
She glanced down and peered at the blue star in the middle of the breastplate. It wasn’t a gemstone, which would make such an enchantment even more expensive and unlikely. Heck, it didn’t even have the basic enchantment for changing her coat to the usual white or grey, though that shouldn’t be too much of a problem since her colours were close enough to the approved shades for her unit.
On the other hoof, she couldn’t argue with its performance.
She spent another couple of minutes going through the motions of a warm-up exercise before trotting to her room, where she stood before the mirror and struck a noble pose. Unlike the various oversized armour sets she’d had to put up with throughout her—admittedly still short—career, this one didn’t make her look like a pony in a tin can. Rather, it accentuated her form, her musculature, her curves and lines, so that she looked more like the star in a play or a movie. Or at least the hot sidekick for the hero to fawn over.
She grinned as she admired her armoured plot and gave herself a mock salute. “Looking good, Scabs. Studs dig fillies in armour!”
Only royalty, nobility or high-ranking officers got to look this good in uniform.
And to top it all off, the thing breathed. Even with her sudden burst of strenuous activity on top of all the cleaning she’d done prior to its delivery, she didn’t feel particularly stuffy or sweaty under all that metal and padding. She could’ve sworn she’d even felt the air whisking away the dampness from her coat whenever she moved. No more risk of heatstroke for her!
If this was what perfectly-fitting armour was supposed to feel like, she finally understood why some ponies like Iron Shell actually wanted to wear their armour even when off duty.
But seriously, though, who sent this?
Because if she was the intended recipient, she really owed somepony a long and heartfelt thank you, in addition to finding out if it had any strings attached. She certainly couldn’t see anypony giving away something so precious for free.
She began trotting back towards the living room to conduct another search for a sender’s note, but paused at the doorframe when she heard some faint rustling.
Glancing downward, Scabby saw a folded piece of paper flutter to the floor.
Frowning, she patted her breastplate and peered at the gaps in her armour from different angles in search of a hidden compartment, but no such thing presented itself. Her best guess was that it might’ve slipped out from between the plating and padding, unless it came with dimensional pockets, too…
She shook her head and picked up the piece of paper.
Unfolding it revealed inky writing so neat that she almost mistook it for print. It read:
Greetings, Royal Guard!
You have been selected as a highly qualified candidate for field-testing of the latest innovation in Equestrian protective attire: Changeling Chainmail!
This state-of-the-art armour boasts all of the defensive capabilities of standard Royal Guard equipment, but with the added benefit of being able to automatically adjust itself to fit you perfectly, anytime, anywhere. Even if you’ve had an unusually large meal, got a bun in the oven, or undergone an unexpected growth spurt, Changeling Chainmail is still capable of giving you optimal protection, comfort and mobility!
Changeling Chainmail is also capable of memorising the personal equinomics of multiple users, so it can be repeatedly loaned out to protect other users or VIPs in a pinch!
On the other hoof, if you have concerns about security, Changeling Chainmail can be instructed to firmly reject* any user other than yourself. Simply issue the command “Bug for one” whilst wearing it to designate yourself as the sole authorised user. “Bug for all” removes this restriction.
*No party shall be held liable for any injuries resulting from repeated unauthorised attempts to use Changeling Chainmail.
Changeling Chainmail also requires minimal maintenance, as it is one hundred percent rust-proof and mildew-proof. No more polishing, no more oiling, and no more worrying about water damage. Simply rinse and keep in a reasonably ventilated space, and it is good to go!
And best of all, it is capable of self-repair within twenty-four hours when fully charged!
All you need to do in order to keep your Changeling Chainmail at peak power and efficiency is to cherish it; whether like a foal’s favourite toy, a professional’s most trusted tool or an ancient family heirloom, it is completely up to you. Changeling Chainmail is capable of processing nearly all forms of positive, possessive affection in order to regenerate and power itself for a lifetime!
We hope that your deployment of this product will be a mutually satisfying experience.
Happy guarding, and remember: your armour is your friend!
Scabby simply stared at the note with her mouth half-open.
“Okay, what the hay?” she eventually muttered as she trotted back into the living room.
First, she upended the box and trawled through the paper scraps, but found nothing else of any significance that might clue her in on who had sent her the armour or why. No notes or scrawled messages that she’d missed, not even on the inside of the box or underneath it.
She glanced at the pamphlet in her hoof and murmured, “Changeling chainmail…”
Had the blacksmiths adopted changeling apprentices and somehow discovered a way to imbue their creations with shapeshifting magic? Or had the old wizards at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns collaborated with their new changeling allies to come up with new ways to enchant equipment?
Both seemed plausible, if a bit improbable, because the higher-ups surely would’ve gotten wind of such undertakings when it concerned martial applications. Not that a grunt like her was privy to military secrets, but such things had a tendency to dribble down the ranks in Canterlot. At the very least, there would’ve been rumours, especially if their former enemies were involved.
Scabby kicked a crumpled ball of paper aside and plopped onto the couch.
Maybe she was looking at it all wrong.
Instead, maybe the changelings had sent it to her, and—
Scabby blinked.
Could a changeling transform into armour? It sounded like the kind of nonsense that Bulwark might spout when he’d had too much to drink, or something that the older guys might whisper to recruits as part of their hazing schemes. The officers had not once mentioned such a fine degree of shapeshifting from their experiences at the invasion of the Royal Wedding, but still…
Sweet Celestia, am I inside a changeling?
Then, Scabby squeaked in a definitely-not-foal-like way when she felt one of the straps tighten across her belly.
“Horse apples!”
She’d seen enough horror movies to know that death by strangulation was one of the commonest and nastiest ways to go.
A cold sweat broke out on her hide as she clawed at the buckles to unfasten them, and her spine conducted a chill all the way from her mane to her tailbone as she squirmed and wriggled her way out of the straps. She bit back a whimper when she glimpsed nightmarish visions of the plates twisting and bowing in to crush her like a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf, and she could’ve sworn she’d heard slurping and the wet smacking of lips just as she undid the last strap and peeled the armour off of her.
Once free, she kicked it to the floor and curled her tail around herself whilst she waited on the couch for the shivers to pass.
Then, after a full minute of staring at an inert pile of metal on the floor, Scabby felt her cheeks heat up and groaned when her brain finally decided to start working again.
It was all a prank.
It had to be!
A talented unicorn could briefly enchant armour to mould itself to her form, just long enough for her to get all excited about it, and then freak out once it started poking or squeezing her.
Scabby got up, stomped to the window and yanked the curtains aside, fully expecting to find a group of her fellow guards huddled outside, sniggering and giggling at her expense.
“Very funny, guys,” she growled as she lifted the window pane and poked her head out.
But instead of finding the culprits, she only saw a sunny cobblestone street outside her apartment unit. Birds sang in the trees looming over the sidewalk whilst ponies went about their leisurely business. Neither pranksters nor oversized bugs lurked in the hedges or the flower patches.
Okay, so we’re back to square one.
She whirled back around and gave the armour her most menacing scowl.
It didn’t react.
Fine.
She approached it, cautiously at first, but with increasing speed and force as her disgraceful loss of composure replayed over and over in her mind.
Scabby stomped on the breastplate. Hard.
Nothing.
She then grabbed her hammer—the one she’d used to bang the dents out of her own armour—and brought it down onto the helmet.
The resonant clang jarred her teeth, but aside from a minor scuff on the helmet’s polished surface, the ‘changeling chainmail’ gave no indication that it was anything more than an admittedly well-made set of armour.
A brief pang of dread coiled around her heart at the thought of what the drill sergeant would say upon witnessing such mistreatment of gear, but she bulled through the reflexive fear and gave it a few more whacks. When those also failed to convince her one way or another, she dropped the hammer and scowled at the armour.
“Stay right there. I’ll be back…”
After a quick trip to the basement, she came back up with the rusty sledgehammer which the unit’s previous owner had left behind in storage. A little big for a mare her size, but being an earth pony came with certain advantages.
Scabby grinned at the armour as she hefted the sledgehammer with her forelegs and brandished it experimentally. She didn’t know what it might’ve once been used for, but by Celestia’s sunny smiley butt, she knew exactly what purpose it would serve today!
She then reared up on her hind legs and held the sledgehammer high above her head, ready to bring down the thunder, when a little glint caught her eye and gave her pause.
Did… did the helmet just shed a bead of sweat?
I knew it!
She swung it down with all her might, but just before the blow landed, a brilliant flash of green light obliterated the world from her sight, filling her stinging eyes with dancing afterimages and flickering spots of black and white. Floorboards crunched, the apartment shook and dust cascaded from the ceiling in the aftermath of the bone-jarring impact.
“Grubbing hayseed, are you bucking insane?” someone cried in a high-pitched voice.
Scabby yelped and tried to raise the hammer for another swing, but the floor only creaked in protest and refused to relinquish the heavy metal head buried in its splintered boards.
Stupid thing.
With a snort, she gave the sledge hammer’s shaft a parting whack with her hoof and leapt backwards to put some distance between herself and the threat. She kept a low and wide stance, ready to shift her balance on a moment’s notice whilst she waited for the afterimages to clear from her eyes.
When her vision recovered, she saw dark figure sitting on its rump with its back pressed up against the couch, clutching its chest with a hoof as it panted. Its entire body was covered in what looked like hard, semi-glossy, charcoal-grey plating, with lighter bands of grey around its midriff. It also had a curved horn, a frill-like mane, holes in its legs and wings, and eyes that were a solid shade of aquamarine.
It took Scabby a moment to process the sight, but once she did, the conclusion was inescapable: she had an evil changeling in her house.
She jabbed a hoof in its direction and growled, “You, you’re under arrest for—”
“Me?” it cried indignantly with a stallion’s voice. It then jabbed a hoof back at her. “You’re the one who would’ve been charged with mareslaughter if I didn’t have such good reflexes!”
“What?” Scabby blinked and shook her head. “Bull. You broke into my house!”
“Actually, you brought me in.”
“On false pretenses. That’s still a crime!” she snapped.
He raised a hoof and opened his mouth, stalled for a couple of seconds, then slowly lowered his foreleg. An awkward grin then worked its way onto his muzzle. “You know what? I think we started off on the wrong hoof. Let’s try that again.”
Before Scabby could protest, he clambered right onto the couch and planted his butt comfortably on her cushions.
“Hi, I’m Sphincter, and I’m a changeling.” He waved at her, buzzed his wings for a second and beamed. “Nice to meet you!”
“Oh no, no-no-no, you don’t get to act as if we just bumped into each other by accident,” she growled as she stomped towards him.
His ears pinned back as he held his forelegs up. “N-now, wait a minute, let’s just talk about this—”
“Get out of my house!” Scabby cried as she leapt at him.
Sphincter yelped and vaulted over the couch’s backrest, but she crashed into him before he could make use of his wings, and they both tumbled over to the other side. Upon crashing to the floor, Scabby pounced on him with a snarl. He was bigger than her, but she had earth pony strength on her side, and that counted for a lot once you were grappling with an opponent.
“Ouch! Not the face—not the face!” he cried as he tried to scurry away.
They wrestled and tussled about, bumping into furniture and scattering crumpled newspaper balls in their wake. Scabby banged her head against the coffee table and her back against the couch a couple of times, but she eventually managed to lay flat with her full weight on top of his back, pinning his wings under her barrel in the process. But before she could put him in a headlock, he craned his neck around and flared his horn.
Scabby’s world winked out for a moment, and she felt herself tumbling head over hooves.
A moment later, her vision cleared, followed by some mild throbbing in her forehead.
Stupid stun spell…
Had she been a pegasus or unicorn, it might’ve dropped her for a minute or two instead of just a couple of seconds.
She glanced around, fully expecting to find her door busted or a smashed window, but everything looked mostly intact.
Then, she looked up.
Sphincter was upside-down, clinging to the ceiling like some obscenely huge spider.
He was well out of her reach, and she didn’t fancy the idea of throwing stuff to knock him down; she’d just fixed the ceiling last month, and the sledge hammer sticking out of the floorboards was already an ugly herald of repair bills on the horizon…
Scabby glared at him and flicked her tail. “Come down.”
“Umm…” He glanced at the sledge hammer stuck in the floor and winced as he rubbed his shoulder. “I think I’m gonna pass on that, thanks.”
They stared at each other in silence.
Then, they both flinched when they heard the harsh rapping of somepony’s hoof on the door.
“Miss Scabbard, is everything all right? That was quite a ruckus back there; I was wondering if you’re okay!”
Great. Wonderful. The neighbours had noticed, after all.
Scabby ground her teeth. She could try calling for help, but then again, civilians might not make much of a difference in this situation. At best, a mob might convince Sphincter to finally get lost, but if only a couple of ponies came to her aid, he might find himself a useful hostage to push through with whatever shady scheme he had in mind.
“I’m okay!” she called out without taking her eyes off Sphincter. “There was a really big, nasty spider. It’s gone now.”
“Oh. Well, okay then. You take care, now!”
The shadow beneath the door gap vanished, but they both maintained their silence, listening to the fading hoofsteps.
Eventually, Sphincter murmured, “Thanks.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” she snapped.
“Regardless, I appreciate it.”
Scabby narrowed her eyes. “Uh huh. I’m sure you do.”
He opened his mouth, then slowly closed it, ears drooping as he did so.
The silence returned.
Then, after a couple more false starts, he sighed and murmured, “Look, I’m sorry I came into your house under false pretenses and gave you a scare. I… I really mean you no harm. I just wanted to show you something I came up with that could benefit both of us.”
“Likely story.”
“It’s true!” Sphincter cried, buzzing his wings. He then wilted a bit and sighed. “But… I guess I can’t blame you for not believing me.”
“Darn right you can’t,” Scabby growled. She then gestured at him with a hoof and continued, “I mean, you still have that black carapace and cheese-legs thing going on. What’s up with that? I thought changelings had reformed!”
“Oh. That,” he muttered, suddenly baring his teeth, though it didn’t look like his ire was directed at her. “Well, I guess I didn’t get the memo.”
Scabby bit her lip.
Now that she’d had time for her heart rate to drop back to normal, she couldn’t help noticing the grotesque holes in his legs. They reminded her of grub-riddled logs rotting on the forest floor, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine as she imagined what it might feel like to have all manner of creepy-crawlies going in and out of her body.
Changeling anatomy and physiology had become mandatory reading for the Guard ever since the Canterlot invasion. Everypony knew that they fed on emotions, but her memory on the finer points of their life cycle was a little hazy after her graduation...
She ground her teeth.
He was probably going to sense the opening and milk it for all it was worth, but with Princess Twilight on the throne and her new guidelines on interspecies relations, it would probably look just as bad for her if he dropped dead from starvation after visiting her house.
Worse still, the reformed changelings were supposedly friends of Equestria, now. Did he count as one of their citizens? If their king got word that she’d mistreated one of his kin—even if Sphincter started it by trespassing and posing as inanimate military equipment—she’d be stuck right in the middle of a diplomatic incident…
She sucked in a deep breath and sighed. “How bad is it?”
“What?”
“Are you starving?” She cast a glance back at the overturned box and balls of crumpled newspaper strewn about, then turned back to peer at the holes in his limbs. “I mean, that’s why you pulled this stunt, isn’t it? Can I get you anything?”
He blinked. “I—I’m fine as far as organic nourishment is concerned, thanks. But love, on the other hoof… My metaphysical stomach is shrivelling up like an old tea bag; if I don’t get a decent meal soon, I’ll slowly go feral and eventually hurt somepony.”
Yikes.
“So…” He grinned sheepishly. “Does this mean you’re willing to give me another chance and hear me out?”
Scabby creased her brow and gave him a single nod.
As soon as she saw his teal eyes sparkle, she held up a hoof to forestall the coming tide of thanks and flattery that he might employ to further wear down her guard. She knew that look—it was the kind of look that eventually led to parents housing every stray animal in the neighbourhood. If she wasn’t careful, she might even end up with a housemate.
“Let’s just be clear about one thing: I’m willing to help you if I can, but as far as you being my guest is concerned, you’re on probation. If you try any more funny business without my permission, I’m kicking your flank out of my house.” She stomped a hoof to emphasise the point. “Got it?”
He nodded. “Crystal clear. So, I—”
“Ah-ah-ah!” Scabby held her hoof up again. “Before we get into that, could you please get off the ceiling?”
“Done.”
He suddenly dropped from the ceiling like a de-powered magnet and did a neat little flip to right himself, buzzing his wings to hover a couple of feet off the floor. His eyes then drifted over to the couch and lingered for a moment, after which he turned back to her with an unspoken request.
She rolled her eyes and plodded towards the kitchen. “Yeah, sure. Why not. Make yourself comfortable…”
When she came back into the living room with a bottle of cider in her mouth, she found him lounging on the couch with his legs all stretched out like he owned the place. He’d also shapeshifted to look like he was wearing bluish-grey royal guard armour that the unicorn division usually wore, but as a changeling.
Upon seeing his disarming smile, Scabby set her bottle down on the coffee table and silently trudged over to the spot where she’d left the sledge hammer embedded in the floor. It took her a fair bit of heaving, but she eventually wrenched it free and cheerfully trotted over to join him. She sat on the opposite end of the couch and left the sledge hammer leaning on the armrest, well within easy reach.
She grinned when she saw his smile falter.
“Okay, talk,” she said after taking a swig of cider.
“Well, since you’ve already had a practical demonstration, I think we can jump straight to the business proposal,” he said, casting a glance at her original set of tarnished armour sitting rather forlornly next to the coffee table. “You need armour that actually fits you properly, and I need emotional sustenance. Just think about it: you get self-regenerating armour that never needs maintenance, aside from your appreciation. You’ll never need to go ask that crotchety quartermaster for a refit ever again. That’s a total win-win for both of us!”
Scabby scrunched her muzzle and squirmed a little. “I don’t know. It seems a little creepy. Was the mailmare in on it?”
He shrugged. “Only if you think too hard about it. And, no, the mailmare didn’t even know what’s in the box. Come on, give me a little credit.”
“Are you sure I can’t just give you a hug instead?”
“You could, and it’ll definitely keep me going for a couple of days if you really mean it, but I’m thinking long term.” He tapped his head with a hoof and smiled. “A symbiotic relationship – or business partnership, if you prefer – would be a much better investment.”
His smile then slipped off as his ears drooped. “Also, I’ve spent so much time coming up with this concept and perfecting my shapeshifting to overcome that dumb conservation of mass problem that I really, really don’t want to have wasted all of that time and effort. Sunk-cost fallacy’s hitting me super hard right now.”
“Why not just go back to the hive? I’m sure they’ll teach you whatever mumbo jumbo they did to turn into their…” She paused, searching for the right words to describe the aggressively gaudy mix of pinks, purples and greens on the last changeling she’d seen, “—prettier forms.”
“Hah! You can’t even say it with a straight face. Who wants to look like a rainbow puked on them?”
“Someone who doesn’t want to starve?” Scabby folded her forelegs and stared at him with half-lidded eyes. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I can if I want to, so there!” he said, sticking his forked tongue out. “I’m not that desperate yet.”
“So, am I, like, the last thing standing between you and becoming a rainbow reindeer?”
“If I say yes, will that make you more inclined to partner up?” He leaned against the couch’s backrest and grinned as he swept a hoof from his face to his belly. “I mean, you wouldn’t wish that fate on a handsome bugger like me, right?”
Scabby continued giving him a deadpan look.
“Oof. Tough crowd.”
“Tough luck. Tick-tock, mister.”
“Right, right, back on topic!”
His smile brightened up again, and he raised a hoof as he spoke, as if he was about to drop a doozy of a revelation on her unsuspecting brain. “In addition to all the advantages you’ve already experienced, Changeling Chainmail also comes with the benefit of, of…”
Sphincter frowned as his words petered out, and he slowly lowered his hoof, blinking like somepony who couldn’t quite believe that the milk had run out just as he was pouring it onto his cereal.
“Actually, that about covers it,” he finished lamely.
“Wait, really?” She cocked an eyebrow. “That’s all you got?”
“Well… if you don’t mind the risk of looking a little different from the standard gear on close inspection, it’s got better weather-versatility. Extra floof on demand in winter, for example.”
She gave him a non-committal hum.
“Look, the concept is literally living armour that feeds on your appreciation. You’ve read the pamphlet and tried me out for yourself. Equal protection with better mobility, comfort, plus a few utilitarian features, with only a tiny fraction of the usual maintenance required,” Sphincter said as he tapped a hoof on his breastplate. He then huffed and shook his head. “There really isn’t a whole lot more to it. Like, what else do you want from me?”
Scabby took another gulp of cider.
Good gear was hard to come by, and doubly so for an earth pony her size. Plus, the Royal Guard were scheduled to be in the parade next week, which would mean spending the whole weekend tinkering with her armour to make it presentable. She could save a whole lot of time and effort by taking him up on his offer, and… darn it, she was already dreading the thought of wearing her standard-issue tin can after experiencing the sublime comfort and efficiency of ‘changeling chainmail’.
Unfortunately, there was the inescapable fact that it involved sorta being inside a changeling.
After grinding her teeth in silence for a couple of seconds, she groaned softly and shook her head. “Yeah, I don’t think this is going to work. It’s a neat idea and all, and kinda tempting if I’m being honest, but it sounds way too much like a weird relationship that’s probably going to get us into a whole lot of trouble if anypony finds out. I don’t know if I can do this.”
Sphincter didn’t answer. He simply drooped his head until he was staring at his hooves.
An awkward silence seeped into the living room.
Scabby averted her gaze, fully expecting an attempt to guilt-trip her with weapons-grade puppy dog eyes, or whatever the bug equivalent might be. She just needed to give him a little time for the realisation to sink in, and then maybe she could convince him to seek help elsewhere – preferably with somepony who actually knew how to deal with remnant changelings.
After a minute had passed, she hopped off the couch and said, “Look, let me get you something for the road and I’ll—”
“Say, how do you feel about flying?”
Her heart skipped a beat, and she froze in mid-step, ears perked.
Slowly, she turned to face him and said, “Come again?”
Sphincter shifted to sit on his haunches with a straight posture, and his translucent wings transformed into a pair of feathery ones in a flash of green flame. He then spread them out and wiggled his eye ridges, saying, “Would you like to fly? And don’t mean like being carted around in a sky chariot or floated around by a unicorn; I mean flying like a real pegasus.”
Her treacherous heart fluttered again.
Every earth pony had fantasised about flying at some point in their life, and anypony who claimed otherwise was a filthy liar. A memory leapt up from the depths of her mind, of her younger self making whooshing noises as she galloped across a meadow, pretending the swirls of dandelion seeds she kicked up were actual clouds as she soared in the sky.
“Y—you can actually make that possible for me?” she half-whispered.
His smirk oozed back onto his face like honey dribbling onto a pancake.
Scabby gulped. Oh, hayseed.
He totally had her – hook, line and sinker, and he knew it.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Scabby muttered as she crouched on the roof’s edge.
Canterlot’s decommissioned printing press was built on a ledge, and had one side of the building flush with the cliff of the Canterhorn. It offered her a stunning view of the valley below Canterlot, with practically zero obstructions between her and an impact that was bound to do more than stun her.
At least it was mercifully deserted, unlike the grand public balcony on Celestial Street.
Although it wasn’t all that unusual to see pegasi leaping into the sky from there, the last thing she needed was somepony recognising her, an earth pony, jumping off the mountain. The fact that she’d seemingly sprouted a pair of feathery wings was probably going to invite a whole lot of uncomfortable questions, too.
So, to the old printing press it was.
“This is insane,” she repeated, thumping a hoof on her breastplate.
She had to constantly remind herself that her armour was, in fact, a disguised changeling. Darned thing was just so comfortable, she could forget she was wearing it.
Sphincter didn’t answer verbally, since armour didn’t tend to have mouths. But he did have a pair of wings, and he’d done a decent job of matching her coat colour and making them look like they were connected to her back rather than the armour itself.
He used them to give her a couple of reassuring pats on the shoulder and then bent them in front of her, curling his feathers and leaving one on each wing sticking up perpendicularly from the others in an uncanny imitation of a griffish double thumbs-up gesture.
Scabby peered over the edge again and bit back a whimper. From this height, the forest looked more like a green doormat, and she couldn’t even take solace in the possibility of being saved by the few stray clouds floating below if anything went wrong. Because earth pony.
Suffer not the earth pony butt, for it is thick and covered in mud.
Clouds were racist.
For the umpteenth time, she checked the straps and buckles to make sure they were secure. Sphincter had made some additional changes to the standard armour template, which mainly involved bigger straps with extra padding on their inside surfaces to reduce chafing, since it would now have to carry her instead of the other way around.
He’d also added some rudimentary eyes on the helmet so that he could at least have some limited vision whilst flying for her. They could pass for discoloured metal studs to a casual observer, but Scabby thought the beady little dots looked more like spider’s eyes.
She wouldn’t be the one controlling the wings, but he’d assured her that he could read enough of her body language to make his responses feel natural, if she didn’t just outright tell him what she wanted to do. He’d also assured her that he could remain in control of their flight even if she fainted or started flailing around in a panic.
He’d already proven that he could carry her in flight; it was how they’d gotten onto the roof of the abandoned building in the first place. It’d been a somewhat janky experience, similar to being personally ferried around by her winged comrades in Royal Guard training, but he’d assured her that he was still just getting used to her weight, and that soaring would be a much smoother ride.
Come to think of it, that was an awful lot of assurances she was relying on…
Maybe this was all some elaborate ruse to make her jump off a cliff?
Argh, no, stop that. Eyes on the prize. Flying!
If he wanted to assassinate her, he probably could’ve done it already, and in far less convoluted and unreliable ways.
Scabby took in a deep breath to steady her trembling legs and let it whoosh out. “Okay, let’s do this. If I die, I’m haunting you.”
Sphincter gave her another thumbs-up, and she swallowed dryly and leapt off the edge of the roof.
For a moment, she felt frozen in time, suspended a couple of miles above the valley below with her legs dangling freely beneath her. The trees were no more than green fuzz, the river and lakes little more than bits of glass reflecting the sun’s rays. Her hooves, so unnaturally far away from the earth, it was almost blasphemous – a violation of some natural law that made her heart skip a couple of beats.
And then, gravity laid down the law.
Down, down, down she went.
The chilly wind absolutely roared in her ears, clawing and biting at her exposed coat, skin and eyes as she hurtled towards the ground. She was kind of grateful for the noise, because there was no way any mortal pony could clench as hard as she did without squeezing air out of her front or rear orifices like some amateur’s first attempt at the bagpipes.
Her limbs were locked stiff, and she could barely turn her head enough to squint at the mountainside whooshing past her in a blur.
Black, inky spots congealed in her vision.
Then, she gasped for breath, and the influx of pristine air undid her petrification.
Scabby’s legs wobbled unsteadily, threatening to send her spinning, but with some effort, she managed to straighten them out like a pegasus would in a dive. Meanwhile, Sphincter had spread his wings, but they weren’t yet angled to properly catch air. He was waiting for her.
Gritting her teeth, she raised her left foreleg slightly to indicate her desire to bank to the right, and felt her heart swell when Sphincter’s wings responded accordingly. She felt gravity and deceleration pressing down on her as he angled them to catch more air, until they had levelled out and settled into a swift glide that followed the curvature of the Canterhorn’s eastern face. She spotted a couple of eagles nesting on a scraggly tree they breezed past, and even a trail of ponies slowly marching up the old, winding road up to Canterlot.
“Sup, dudes!” Scabby cried when she cut across the flight path of a flock of geese.
After putting some distance between herself and their indignant honking, she raised her head and relaxed her limbs until they dangled loosely, indicating her desire to slow down and level out.
Sphincter complied and pumped his wings for a bit to decelerate, then spread them out again to catch the rising thermals for a leisurely glide. At least, Scabby thought that was what he was doing; she didn’t have the slightest clue what riding a thermal should feel like, as opposed to a standard updraft.
She cruised for a bit, simply soaking in the sun’s rays and the magnificent view of the forest, rivers and lakes below.
When her thumping heart was ready for a little more excitement, she straightened out her legs and threw her weight to the right.
“Whoa!” she cried when Sphincter rewarded her with a barrel roll.
Fighting back a hysterical giggle, Scabby pitched herself forward a little aggressively, and then gasped when Sphincter tucked in his wings and allowed her to tumble forward. The world flipped once, twice, and then a third time before he spread his wings to rapidly decelerate.
“Hoo yeah!” Scabby threw her head up and cackled. “I take it back. Changeling Chainmail is awesome!”
Her armour gave her a brief, full-body hug in response.
She sighed and closed her eyes as they settled into a gentle glide once more. They were roughly at the midway point of the mountain’s height and a safe distance from its rocky outcroppings and trees, so she had plenty of room to drift safely.
It was almost comfortable enough for napping, being snugly suspended in her armour and caressed by the breeze like that.
If Scabby concentrated, she could’ve sworn she even felt Sphincter’s wings as if they were her own. Cold air rustled each feather, and every shift in the wind’s direction or pressure sent a perceptible jolt down from the length of the erect limbs to the armour, which then rocked her body, much like a cart wheel with decent suspension hitting a bump in the road.
Fellow ground ponies, eat your hearts out!
Scabby grinned when she opened her eyes and spotted a lone cloud. It looked a little stretched-out and wispy, probably after drifting far from the weather factory as a reject sample or being neglected by the weather team. She’d always wondered what it was like to go through one; would she come out damp and sprinkled with water droplets on the other side?
She pitched forward and dove right toward the cloud.
Ooh, it’s actually bigger than it looks, she thought as she got closer and closer. Maybe I should—
“Oof!”
The cloud hit her.
The initial impact drove all of her breath out in a wheeze, and she bounced almost a full storey’s height into the air before she fell back onto the mass of white fluff.
Although her muzzle and limbs felt absolutely nothing but damp air as she tumbled and bounced on the cloud, she felt as if somepony was repeatedly whacking the armoured parts of her body with a rubber mallet every time she hit its wispy surface. Sphincter’s wings flailed and flapped haphazardly, and she got smacked a couple of times as they bounced and then slid down an incline on the cloud’s trailing end.
Scabby tried to grab onto something, anything, but her hooves passed right through the vapour.
And then she yelped when they went over the edge.
Oh. Oh, hayseed.
She wasn’t good at judging altitude on the fly, but she figured they probably had less than thirty seconds before spreading themselves thinly across the trees and rocks below.
Sphincter’s wings flapped and twitched erratically, like a bird’s after it had bonked itself into a glass window.
“Oh-crud-oh-crud-oh-crud!”
The armour jerked hard, punching out her breath, as Sphincter’s wings straightened out to arrest their fall. She gritted her teeth as they slowly, agonisingly pulled out of a straight drop to an angled swoop. She only just managed to raise her forelegs in time to protect her face before the tallest treetops started smacking her all over.
In the next instant, she felt herself rising again as Sphincter pulled out of the swoop and flapped his wings like an exhausted chicken.
Scabby peeped through the gap between her forelegs and saw a sparkling expanse of crystal-blue water before her. They’d gotten clear of the woods and were bleeding off the rest of their momentum only a couple of storeys’ height above one of the lakes below Canterlot.
“Phew, that was clo—aaah!” she cried when Sphincter’s wings suddenly went limp.
She’d retained enough sense to hold onto what little breath she had left in her lungs when she plunged into the icy water, but she nearly let it all out when she felt her armour’s weight dragging her down into the shadowy depths.
But just as Scabby began pawing at the straps, a flash of green light followed by a swarm of bubbles obscured her vision, and she felt herself rising.
She broke the surface with a gasp and blinked when she found herself bobbing along with the gentle waves, fanned along by a breeze.
Glancing downwards, she found that Sphincter had transformed into what felt like a foam vest, looking very much like one of those foal’s life jackets designed to resemble Royal Guard armour. His wings had disappeared along with her helmet, and he did not respond when she prodded him a couple of times.
He was pretty soft and comfy in addition to being sufficiently buoyant for an adult mare her size, so she had no difficulty paddling to shore despite having just been whipped by tree branches after falling out of the sky.
Speaking of which, a quick glance skyward confirmed that nopony had been close enough to hear or see her little accident, so she wouldn’t have to put up with the company of rescuers or busybodies.
Once she’d dragged herself up onto the pebbly beach, her life jacket unfastened its straps, peeled itself off her back and transformed into Sphincter, who groaned and flopped onto the ground alongside her like a half-dead fish.
“Oh grub, that’s a real ouchie…” he said, scrunching up his muzzle as he massaged his forehead with a hoof. Green gouts of flame sputtered from his horn. “What did we even hit up there? Please don’t tell me it was a goose.”
“We hit a cloud. I don’t know how it happened, but that cloud somehow didn’t want to let me through.”
Scabby then paused halfway through wringing out her tail when she noticed him staring at her.
“What?” she asked.
“You aimed for the cloud? Why?”
“I wanted to go right through it, duh. I thought it’d be fun, since earth ponies usually can’t—wait… can changelings walk on clouds? Are they solid to you guys like pegasi?”
Sphincter collapsed onto his back and snorted. “Yes, changelings can walk on clouds. Guess I should’ve included it in the briefing. Whoops.”
Wow. Clouds were racist to earth ponies. Well, technically to unicorns as well, but at least they had the option of cheating right back with their cheaty magic.
Scabby frowned as she tried to recall if any part of her training had mentioned changelings being able to cloud-walk. Had that been in the manual at all? She couldn’t remember…
“Well, I guess there’s enough whoopsies to go around,” she muttered. “Why didn’t you do anything when we were heading straight for it?”
He paused for a moment. “Was it spread out and dispersed?”
She shrugged. “Kinda, I guess?”
“That would explain it. In case you haven’t noticed, my eyes are pretty lousy when I’m pretending to be your armour.”
They lay on their backs for a while, waiting for their heavy breathing to subside as they listened to the lapping of the water on shore and the chirping of birds. Scabby’s heart didn’t quite settle so quickly, though. Not with her mind constantly drifting back into the sky, soaring on borrowed wings without a care in the world...
Sphincter flicked his tongue out like a snake and smirked. “So… was it as good for you as it was for me?”
“Oh, shut up,” she huffed as she tossed a pebble at him, grinning in spite of herself. “Okay, fine. Flying is awesome and I want to do it again.”
“Yes! A satisfied customer!” He pumped a hoof in the air and cackled.
“Just one thing. You do know that what you turned into was plate mail, right?”
“Alliteration is better marketing.”
“Huh, I guess I’ll take your word for it.” Scabby rolled her eyes. “Where’d you get the idea from, anyway?”
His translucent wings suddenly flushed with brighter shades of blues and yellows. Was that the changeling equivalent of blushing?
“Iron Mare,” he said with a weak smile.
“Well, you can tell her that she’s a genius, and Equestria needs more smart girls like her.”
Sphincter blinked a couple of times. “I… but she’s not rea—never mind. I’m sure she’d appreciate the sentiment.”
He then scooted a little closer to her and stretched out his hoof, grinning conspiratorially. “So, what do you think? Partner?”
She paused for a moment to turn her gaze skyward, and her heart fluttered at the thought of soaring above the clouds once more. It wouldn’t hurt to at least give Sphincter a chance, right? Probably could do with making a friend as well, since Princess Twilight would frown on her if she did it solely for her own personal enjoyment.
It was worth a shot.
For flying!
For friendship, too. Can’t forget that one.
Scabby matched his grin and bumped his hoof. “You got it, partner!”
Author's Note
Inspired by a series of comments on another story, courtesy of Georg and GordonFreeBrony.
The idea had been sitting in my head for a few years before I finally started working on it, and I'd originally planned to finish this on the flight to Bronycon 2019, but over nine hours of wailing babies in close proximity pretty much guaranteed that it was an exercise in futility. 
I only recently rediscovered my drive to finish it, and it turned out way longer than I'd expected. 
Enjoy!
