Jung-ho didn’t know how long he had been flying, his wings ached and were practically begging him to stop but he could care less. He had to get away from that place, he had to get away from this godforsaken country.

He never wanted to stay here for the rest of his life anyways, he was just leaving earlier than he expected. But there was something he had to do first, and it was the hardest thing he was going to do.

He looked down at the small houses below him and spotted the one he was looking for, “Cricket!” He called out, flying down towards it.

His friend peeked his head out of the window, looking tired as he said, “Jung-ho? What are you doing here this early, is something wrong?” Jung-ho landed right in front of him.

He began to rapidly explain everything in vivid detail, having to repeat himself several times as Cricket could barely understand his hysterical explanation. After what felt like the third time, Cricket finally understood and stood agape as it dawned on him.

“Y-you’re... a Prince?!” He exclaimed before Jung-ho slapped his hoof over his mouth, “yes but shush! I was supposed to be killed remember!”

Cricket nodded and made a muffled apology, after Jung-ho sighed, he suddenly pulled his friend into a tight hug. “I-I can’t stay here,” he uttered, clearly startling Cricket.

“What, why?!” He questioned, looking clearly shocked.

“Cricket, I don’t belong here. I’ve never belonged here, you’ve seen the way the elders look at me!” Jung-ho firmly stated.

Cricket looked at the verge of tears when he asked in a shaky voice, “Where are you going?”

“... that’s a good question, just out of here.”

“Take me with you!”

Jung-ho made a “huh?” sound as Cricket grabbed his hooves, “you can’t leave me, please! I promise I won’t trouble you, just let me come with you.”

He shook his head, “Cricket, you can’t do that to your parents. Besides your dad will need you here when the egg cracks,” he gestured inside to a little basket in the corner.

Inside there was a glowing green egg sitting inside it, Cricket whimpered as he stared at it, clearly having second thoughts at the sight of his future sibling. It basically confirmed that he couldn’t come, no matter how much he protested.

Then he looked back at his friends green eyes, whispering in an unusually delicate voice, “will I see you again?”

“I’ll try but—”

“Promise me. Even if it’s just once.”

Jung-ho hesitated, but the pleading look in his friends eyes made him give in, “alright, I promise.”

Without warning Cricket quickly pecked his lips, making him freeze up. Then Cricket softly whispered, “ 조심하세요.”

‘Be careful.’

He then hoofed over a rice hat, it was his very own hat for when he worked in his family’s fields. Perhaps he saw it as a token of his friendship... and affection...

After gulping and putting the hat on his head, Jung-ho replied with, “ 그럴게요.”

‘I will.’

Giving each other one last parting glance, Jung-ho took off into the early morning’s sky, his lips still tingling from the quick kiss.

Two young stallions were marching behind a group of other stallions their ages or even younger, both of them were engaged in deep conversation. One of them was bright yellow with a red mane, his eyes were emerald green. The other was dark brown with a silver mane, his eyes were bright blue.

The darker of the two began to tease, “oh come on Bright Mac, brighten up—”

“Burnt!” The yellow stallion exclaimed in a heavy southern accent, punching his friends shoulder.

“It’s not that big of a deal, I’m sure Buttercup is doing fine back at home with Chiffon.”

Bright Mac rolled his eyes as he grumbled, “That don’t mean I ain’t missing her! She’s still pregnant with our first kid, might I remind ya.”

“I almost forgot about that, couldn’t you guys have just waited a little longer? I mean you’re both still eighteen,” Burnt chided thoughtfully.

His friend was about to respond before pausing, stopping in his tracks. Then he raised an eyebrow, “hey is it just me or is somepony over there?” He pointed towards a bush, seeing green hair poking out.

Burnt squinted as he observed, “and is the horn on that pony.. deformed?”

Jung-ho had never seen anything like this! So this is what Equestrians looked like, he had only heard bits and pieces about them through pieces of literature and whispers between the elders of his village.

They were all so... colorful! And they had strange pictures on their flanks? All of them had different ones, he saw one with a rolling pin, another with two curved candy sticks (candy canes he guessed, having heard of them once), and even an Equestrian with half an apple with a star on it!

... A right of passage? He guessed, having never heard or seen anything about unique markings on flanks.

He gasped and ducked down as the very stallion with the apple marking stopped in his tracks, staring in his direction.

He had been spotted!

Oh no, oh no! He had heard of what traveling Equestrians favor changelings for, seeing them as an ‘exotic experience’, just the term made him shiver in disgust.

Jung-ho glanced up and saw a yellow face looking down at him, with a squeak, he turned into a pebble on instinct. The stallion let out a, “woah! Burnt come’ere, I think I just found a local!”

Another face popped into view, a much darker one with pretty blue eyes.

“Bright Mac, that’s a pebble.”

“I swear it was a changeling at first, it... shape-shifted into this here pebble,” he picked it up and held it to his friends face.

Jung-ho, not being trained very well in the “art of shapeshifting” as Netwing phrased it, promptly turned back into himself and made the yellow stallion fall down with him.

Locking eyes with the green-eyed stallion, he started to panic and tried to apologize as he scrambled back onto his hooves. They both looked at him with bewildered looks, the yellow one saying, “hey hey! We won’t hurt you, you just surprised us is all.”

The changeling still tried to cover his face with the hat, whimpering in fear.

The darker one proceeded to lift his chin up, raising an eyebrow as he admitted, “sorry, guess we were the ones who gave you a scare, huh?” Jung-ho wanted to nod but couldn’t stop shaking, his lip quivering.

“My name’s Bright Mac,” the yellow one said, pointing at himself, “that’s Burnt Oak... wait, wait.” He stopped talking as he realized something, beginning to slowly say, “do you understand us? We’re speaking Equinish—”

“I can speak Equinish!” Jung-ho snapped in annoyance, startling Bright Mac.

“What an interesting accent, and an echoey voice?” Burnt Oak commented, finding the young changeling’s anger to be weirdly adorable.

Jung-ho raised an eyebrow, “what about my accent? What about yours!?” They weren’t wrong about him having an accent, he genuinely didn’t realize it.

When he talked he unintentionally emphasized the ‘o’ and ‘a’ sounds weirdly, but to be fair he had never heard an actual Equestrian pronouncing these words before.

Plus the fact that their voices were so crystal clear and not “echoey” as Burnt described it, only made his head spin a bit in confusion. It was so weird to him.

Burnt responded to his question with, “well compared to ours it sounds a little strange, nothing wrong with it! It’s just funny to hear.”

“Plus, we’re from the country part of Equestria so that’s our excuse,” Bright Mac joked.

Jung-ho pointed at the large group of stallions walking in a single direction, “where are you Equestrians even going?”

Burnt Oak rolled his eyes as he grumbled, “you can just call us ponies, ya know?”

Bright Mac winced as he answered, “we’re heading to Vietrot, you know, Changeling Territory.”

The young changeling tilted his head as he repeated, “‘Changeling Territory’? You know you can just call it a country, right? Also why are you going there, I mean, it’s not like Queen Femina is that pleasant to just visit out of nowhere.”

The stallions cringed, both realizing the naivety of the changeling in front of them. Finally Bright confessed, “you see... we’re not going in to just visit, we were all forcibly drafted into a war against the tyrant Queen Chrysalis.”

Instead of being devastated or even offended as the stallions guessed, Jung-ho just stared at them and back at the marching stallions. Then the asked the following question:

“I’m sorry, are you insinuating that males can fight in war?!”

Author's Note

I like to imagine that Changelings didn’t have that bad of a rep before the Canterlot Wedding Incident, I imagine them being seen only as an “exotic experience” by Equestrians beforehand and they find it extremely demeaning and even disgusting to their proud species. It’ll go a lot more into depth into this obviously objectifying ideology later on