Diaries of the Anonymous Filly

My mind was reeling at everything Twilight had told me. On the other side of a magic mirror—one she kept in a storage room when not in use—lay a world not unlike the one I'd left behind. There was a place called Canterlot High, where Twilight had befriended duplicates of her Equestrian friends, redeemed Sunset Shimmer, and even duked it out with mythical beings known as sirens. At the same time, I could tell that it was definitely not my Earth. Names like Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, or Rainbow Dash would never fly there. And the beings were nigh-human, but the illusion she projected from her horn was proportionately all wrong, and too colourful.

But in a way, that sorta meshed with what I'd told Starlight about the different planes... A Material plane and the Feywild, I thought as I made my way back to my bedroom after the two-hour lecture. Does that make ponies Fey? It would explain why the Otherworld had little or no natural—or at least active—magic of its own, and the parallelism.

Did that make my Earth the Shadowfell after all? Or was it just one of many demiplanes?

Then of course, there was the matter of Sunset Shimmer, and discrepancy in the flow of time between the two worlds. Sunset had been Celestia's personal pupil and adoptive daughter before Twilight had ever even gotten her cutie mark, which would've been at least twenty years ago, and yet on the other side, only a few years had passed. And from the sound of it, when Twilight went through, she'd only been a teenager on the other side.

Setting my cloak and my notebook down beside my nest, I flopped down atop the pile. And that book... she was definitely writing in English using the Equestrian sun-glyphs, rather than the Latin Alphabet, and yet Twilight was able to read all of it, even if she didn't contextually understand it. Could that mean that Harmony had some sort of effect on the words written in those interdimensionally linked books? Or did this portal imprint languages the same way Harmony granted me the understanding of the spoken Equestrian?

I shook my head,clearing the thoughts from my mind. There were other things I should be focusing on right now, like whatever the fuck it was happening to me. I'd allowed the existence of another world temporarily distract me from the fact that I'd lost time, and might've had my mind tampered with. Hell, my mood was fluctuating a bit too much, which only cemented my fear of tampering. But why?

Rolling onto my side, I eyed the gift-box once more. Based on the fact that there was a scroll in looped through the ribbon, rather than a card in an envelope, it was likely from one of the princesses. Since she had apparently gone through the whole place in our absence, my guess was Luna. That said, I couldn't understand why she would leave me a gift. I couldn't exactly say I'd earned it, could I?

With a sigh, I crawled back down off my pile, and made my way over to the bed. I could easily hop up, but I was more comfortable on the floor, so I pulled the box down. It was a surprisingly mundane white box with a navy lid, but it was sealed shut by the ribbon wrapping it. That wasn't important now, though. Let's see what the scroll has to say, I thought as I unfurled the message.

Dear Anonymous,

I, more than any other living pony, know how awful it can be to be trapped inside one's own body. To be robbed of your own free will, helpless to watch as your body moves and acts without consent, is a terrifying ordeal even to one such as I. For one so young, I cannot fathom how you feel in the wake of this, knowing just hours before, you were almost completely devoid of magic.

Knowing not the cause of your condition, nor if it might happen again, I hope that this gift may bring you comfort. As you showed interest in Tiberius during our first meeting, and mentioned having another opossum as your companion in the past, I could think of no better model for this gift. This plush possesses a enchantment that activates a calming charm upon being squeezed, and it is my hope that you will keep it with you until we are sure that this has passed.

Princess Luna

She got me a stuffed opossum and enchanted it to bring me comfort, I mused, setting the scroll down on the edge of the bed with care. The binding ribbon and the lid of the box followed soon after. Inside the gift box, looking up at me from a nest of navy tissue paper, was a lifelike young opossum. It was larger than a joey you'd see clinging to its mum, but small enough that it could easily fit in the pockets of my cloak, or sit comfortably in my mane.

Reaching into the box, I pulled out my new little friend. Even though they were just glossy beads, those beady little eyes brought a genuine smile to my face. Plus, the fake fur of its coat was super soft. Even the tail, coated in some sort of pseudo-leather, did a good job of mimicking the real thing, complete with some sort of flexible structure inside to provide realistic flexibility. It was perfect.

This was clearly a custom job, and no way could it have been done in just the one night. Did that mean the Moon Horse had already made it before today, and the enchantment was just a response to yesterday? The more I interacted with the princess, the more I got the feeling that she genuinely cared for, and wanted to protect, all of Equestria's foals—an untold number of which I was now a member of. In seeing the way my eyes lit up at meeting her own possum, could she have decided that such a stuffed animal would bring me comfort?

"He's too old for baby shit like that," came the memory of his voice to oh so helpfully admonish me.

Except, I wasn't so sure that was true now. It would definitely have been before I crossed the veil, but from what I'd seen in media, many young women had kept plush critters—especially childhood mementos—well into their young adulthood. Not only that, but it felt like my brain was slowly growing closer to what would be considered neurotypical for a pony foal. Would it really be so wrong of me to accept the comfort of a plush?

Experimentally, I gave it a gentle hug. A sigh escaped my lips as a warmth began to fill my body, as if I were the one being hugged. Somehow, hugging this little plush—as infantile as it may seem—made me feel safer than I'd felt in a long time. There was this sense that everything would be okay. Like a mother's hug. That warmth and reassurance slowly faded as I loosened my grip on the plush.

If humans are allowed to have an emotional support animal, why shouldn't I be allowed to have an enchanted emotional support plush, I decided, setting it atop my mane. I couldn't think of a decent reason not to keep it around and try to humour the Princess Luna's request. 'It's too girly,' was honestly kinda misogynistic, and didn't seem worth considering. Likewise, 'You're too old,' I felt like contradicting if nothing else than to spite a dead man. Not to mention I was too grateful to Luna to begin casting doubts as to her intentions.

~ 18 ~

Dinner that evening was a hearty minestrone soup, accompanied by garlic cheese bread. I know I tend to ignore Spike's existence more than I probably should, but I gotta admit, the kid can cook. Nothing I'd ever cobbled together from forage, hunting, or fishing, back when I was on the road, had ever tasted this good. Even most diners I'd splurged at couldn't compare. If he'd been born a pony, I'd bet he'd have a cooking-related cutie mark.

It didn't take very long into dinner for someone to notice my new friend. I was maybe half-way finished my bowl of soup when Starlight had asked what I had on my head. From there, a short conversation about Luna's gift was had. Not unexpectedly, Twilight knew all about the gift and the letter the princess had left, and she seemed glad that I was taking it seriously. Meanwhile, Spike just thought it was cool, and then asked if I'd named it yet.

I hadn't, and told them as much. "You don't just name things on a whim," I'd told them. "After all, one of the guys on that boat I'd crewed for the <> trip had told me of how his son had named their dog Hammer, joking that the thing had certainly been as dumb as a sack of them." That'd gotten a laugh out of Spike and Starlight, while Twilight simply nodded.

No, if I named it, I wanted it to be something meaningful to me. My first thought was to name it Samwise, after my companion when I travelled across the US. Then of course, there was the option of honouring Luna's own pet, Tiberius, and calling it Tibbers. That didn't feel right either, though. Names from Terran fiction didn't really fit here, nor did normal human names.

Eh, just something else to give thought to.

Once dinner was out of the way with, I stopped by my room to pick up my cloak and pocket dictionary, and then went back to the library. Again, the bat pony guard was watching me from atop one of the bookshelves, although she looked a lot more alert this time around. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if she happened to have been spending much of my earlier study session catching some shut-eye. That's not to say she didn't follow when I left; she just had a very unobtrusive presence.

This evening, however, the guard wasn't the only pony to keep me company. Twilight and Spike were occupying a table at the other end of the library. Given the presence of many magic books on the table, I assumed that she was doing some of her own research or light reading, although I think it was mostly a pretext for keeping an eye on me. That was fine by me.

Instead of continuing my magic research, I went to the shelf where I'd seen Biologia Mutabilis - On Changelings New and Old. It was a large tome bound in a strange, almost chitinous material, but I could tell from the white pages I saw upon pulling it out that it was a brand new. The spine didn't even have any creases, which indicated it might not have even been opened yet.

It was also a bit heavy, but I tolerated the three-legged shuffle I had to do to carry it. I didn't fancy doing the usual non-unicorn thing and picking it up with my teeth, partially because it was a pretty big book. The guard didn't hide her curiosity as she watched me carrying the book—especially when she caught sight of the title—but Twilight was a bit more discreet in watching me. Why did she look worried, though?

Setting the book on my usual table, and then retrieved my dictionary from the pocket of my cloak. A tome like this was bound to have some unfamiliar moon-glyphs, and I wanted to not misunderstand a thing. After reading about them in that children's book, I was genuinely interested in finding out more about changelings. After all, it'd be super neat to be able to shapeshift, or barring that having friends who could.

The first section of the book was a brief by the authors. One of them was actually a familiar name: Apocrita, the author of that book from the first day of school. The other was a unicorn scholar, by the name of Moon Dancer, that I think might've been mentioned by Twilight before. Basically, the book was written at the behest of the princesses and the changeling leadership, intended to relate what knowledge the changelings had of their history, as well as detailing the life-cycle and biology. It then explained some background on the authors that didn't really feel as important as the content that came after.

The next section detailed the life-cycle of the changeling. Insectine in nature, changelings laid eggs, but despite their hive-habitation, the hive queen was not the sole egg-layer. Instead, any changeling of sufficient age was able to breed and lay an egg. The only difference between the queen and the average changeling in this matter was that the queen was able to lay an entire clutch using genetic material donated from outside the species. According to Apocrita, this was an evolved response to sudden cataclysms that decimated the populations since times before Queen Chrysalis.

Upon hatching, a larva—or grub depending on who you asked—would spend the entirety of its infancy in the communal brooding chambers. There, they would be overseen and fed by select caretakers. The larva entry also revealed that although changelings primarily subsist off of love, they also rely on whatever food they can acquire for nutrition and to grant biomass for growth and/or healing.

A sufficiently grown larva would then ascend the walls of the brooding chambers and find a spot on the ceiling from which to construct its cocoon and enter a state of hibernation. There it would sit for many months while the changeling within his or her pupa developed the more familiar equine body-shape. During this time, caretakers watched for any sign of smaller insects attempting to feed on the vulnerable changeling within, as well as cleaning and moisturising the cocoons to keep them from drying out before their time.

Once its body has fully developed and hardened, the nymph—the changeling equivalent of a foal—would use its horn to tear through the silken cocoon and slowly fall to the floor. Pheromones allowed the parents to find their nymph among the crowd of freshly emerged changelings. At this point they were—at least in the old ways—taught everything they needed to know in order to either infiltrate other societies and gather love for the hive, or fulfil some other role within the hive. Now, they were more or less being treated to childhoods as foals are.

After several molts over the span of about twelve years, a changeling reached physical and sexual maturity. It was at this point when the signature leg holes started to develop. Rather than serving as any real purpose, they were a symptom of starvation and insufficient replenishment of biomass. The body began to actively feed upon itself, although sufficiently fed changelings had been known to regenerate their legs.

The only other life state mentioned in this was the queen. There was only ever one queen to a hive. Upon the death of a queen, or if the current queen had fallen out of favour, another would undergo a second pupal stage and arise from the females within the hives. In the case of a usurper, there was usually bloodshed and a schism within a hive between rebels and loyalists. There had been instances recorded in the distant past of a queen's own offspring possessing the traits of a queen and leaving to start their own hives, although none happened in recent history. It was currently not known if reformed changelings will have some sort of queen life-state, or if they even had need for one. For that matter, are they the last of their kind, or are there other hives elsewhere similar to Chrysalis's?

There were all sorts of other biological details or mentions of abilities other than shapeshifting, but they didn't seem particularly pertinent. I mean, yeah, it's pretty neat that their primary construction material was a mix of reconstituted biomass and a secretion of their throats, and that they could even spit such globules at range to disable prey. It was kinda horrifying that the classical changeling occasionally made pods out of the stuff in order to either replace and feed on a pony, or for shipping back to the hive. The only part that really stuck out was the application of mental magic and something called a geas in order to snare the juiciest of prey for repeated feedings.

Before I could move on to the history part, I saw that Starlight had joined me at the table. "What'cha reading, Anon?" she asked pulling a cushion over to sit beside me. As she got a better look at what I'd been reading—including the anatomical diagrams of the average changeling before and after redemption—her eyes bugged out a bit. Why was she so alarmed? "Whoa, that's a bit much for casual reading, don't you think? I know there's not much in terms of fiction here, but there's got to be more interesting things to read than Biologia Mutabilis."

I shrugged and glanced over at Twilight, who was pretending not to watch me. "Eh, Changelings came up in a book Miss Cheerilee had the class reading," I answered with a bit of a yawn. Jeeze, have I been reading for two hours already? "One of the authors of this was actually the author of that book, too, so I got curious."

She let out a sigh, and a lot of the tension left her shoulders. "Oh," she said softly. "That makes sense."

With a nod, I shut the book and turned to face her completely. "Would you be surprised to hear that back in my previous world, there were actually various myths regarding shapeshifters?" I asked, feeling somewhat nostalgic thinking back to those times spent reading mythology books in libraries. "Skin-walkers, vampires, werewolves—" The fact that those concepts translated scared the fuck out of me. I think the fact that I actually shivered clued her into what spooked me. "—the nine-tailed foxes of East <> folklore, and even demons such as succubi. Then there were the changeling myths themselves."

Twilight had stopped pretending she was watching me, and was instead actively listening as I spoke. "On the continent of <>, there were myths around <>-like creatures that would replace a <> child, or sometimes even young mothers," I explained. "They were typically left there by other fae spirits—fairies—when stealing the child for some purpose. Depending on the source, a changeling might be an elderly fae wanting to live in luxury, but common theory is that changelings were used as an explanation for infanticide in times of famine or if the child was suspected to be the result of infidelity. Horrifying, right?"

Starlight only nodded, looking slightly ill. "I think it's time you go wash up for bed," she said, changing the topic. "If you're good, I was thinking about having you practice with the clay again."

I couldn't help but perk up at that. "Oh! About that!" I said, returning the book to its proper spot on the shelf. Once I was done, Starlight started to lead me out of the library. "I was thinking, maybe we should bake a clay disc with the light spell inscribed on it and make a necklace out of it. That way, if I get lost or I black out again, I can make a miniature sun so someone can find me!"

She smiled down at me as she walked beside me, the corner of her mouth pulling up in amusement. "That's not a bad idea, Anon," she agreed with a laugh. There was a certain teasing tone in her voice, but I knew she wasn't mocking me. "And it certainly doesn't hurt that you'll be able to practice magic and work on building your reservoir whenever you think we aren't looking, right?"

~ 18 ~

The green filly ran. It's all she was good at, and all she would ever get to be. Her black twinned ponytails were matted with sticks, leaves, dirt, and sweat, but she didn't care. She had to get as far away from Manehattan. Otherwise, Daddy would catch her... and then bad things would happen. I don't know how I knew, but I knew.

She was so tired, though. There was definitely a fear about her, but it was muted, like she'd given up on acknowledging it... or had given up on life itself, and was simply running to escape the pain. It was something I could relate with on an emotional level. She's so young though—way too young to give up on life. Can't be more than six.

I just floated alongside the child, wondering who she was, and why I could feel what she was feeling. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place where I'd seen her before. More than that, though, I wanted to tell her that she didn't have to be scared—to let her know that I was here for her. My voice wouldn't come though. In fact, I didn't even seem to have a physical body. I was just... along for the ride.

The woods were dense with trees and brambles, and though the latter licked at her flesh like flames when she strayed too close, she didn't so much as flinch. This little filly was a trooper, to be sure. She didn't even seem to notice the pain, despite bleeding from several surface-scratches. Her green eyes were rimmed with red, so maybe she just didn't cry because she'd no tears left to cry.

Up ahead, there was a ravine, but from down on the ground, the little filly made no indication that she saw it coming. From her height, I don't think she could; it was dark out, after all, and the moon was not yet high in the sky. I wanted to warn her so badly, but I was left unable to speak.

When her hoof caught a branch and sent her tumbling down the embankment, I couldn't help but cringe. She struck many different branches and rocks before she came to a rest at the bottom of the ravine. Though her head remained untouched, I could tell that she wasn't going to be walking again. There was an open fracture on her back leg, and I'm pretty sure a hoof wasn't supposed to bend that way. And that was just the surface stuff that I could see.

"Well, Em," she whimpered, clutching her uninjured hoof against her rib cage. When she spoke, I saw her teeth were stained red. That ain't good. "Looks like we'll be seeing mommy again soon."

I don't know how long I just hovered about her as she flitted in and out of consciousness, her heartbeat beginning to slow in my metaphysical chest. It was painful for me to watch, since I couldn't even comfort her. Still I stayed, hoping my wishes of comfort would reach her. All the while, I was left to wonder who this filly was. What did she go through so that, even lying broken and dying at the bottom of a ravine, she wouldn't cry out in pain?

As if to answer me, flickers of thoughts—no, memories—flooded across the link that bound us. A pegasus mare in a hospital bed, whom the filly was the spitting image of, holding something swaddled in cloth. "Her name is Emerald Flicker," the mare declared. There was no stallion there with her. Just a mother, the medical staff, and the newborn.

Glimpses of a childhood not my own assailed me with parties full of excited foals. Trips to the zoo with Mommy and a stallion she didn't yet know. The foal seemed so happy. "He's not Daddy!" Emerald seethed as her mother told her that she was getting married. She couldn't have even been four at the time. Oh, the couple seemed okay at first, but this stallion was not a good pony, any more than my own genetic donor had been a good man. Emerald had overheard many fights between the two, including physical abuse, but she was powerless to protect Mommy. Hell, the bastard hit her if she even dared stand up for her mother.

Then, just like that, Mommy was gone, and she was left alone with her not-father. The stallion claimed it was an accident, that she'd just fallen down the stairs, but at four years old, Emerald had somehow understood. It'd been intentional, and now he had everything he wanted.

This is quite vivid the dream, Luna, but why would you show me something so awful? I had to be dreaming, as it was the only thing that made sense. Surely the princess wouldn't show me such things. Or was I having another dream outside her control?

For my own mental well being, I tried to shut out the link between the two of us, and returned to my silent vigil. Whatever awful things had happened to her between then and now... I don't think I could stomach it. It was bad enough that I had to watch her die, but if I had to watch a filly get sexually abused by her stepfather... I'd probably try to find a way to kill myself and awaken.

Instead, crystalline tendrils rose up from the ground to caress the wounded child. There was a faint glow to them, and wherever they touched, the wounds and aches faded away. Yet Emerald didn't rise or even move. I could tell she yet lived, as I could feel her heart beating strongly as though it were my own. She's given up entirely. Even with this magical mystery cure, she won't get up.

Something glowing brightly flickered into being before the little pony. For a moment, I thought it was actually Princess Celestia, but even she didn't glow like this... nor was she made of some sort of living crystal. Was this some sort of pony personification of death, or...?

The Celestia lookalike leaned down to nuzzle the child and opened her mouth to speak. No words that I could understand left her mouth; only the sound of static reached my ears. Emerald, on the other hand, seemed to understand perfectly. "I don't want to hurt anymore," she whimpered, tears streaking down her cheeks for the first time since I'd found myself following along. "I just want to see my mommy again."

The crystal entity turned to me, suddenly, as everything darkened around me. "This was not for you to see, Nemo," the avatar spoke, the same musical tone as when I first met Celestia. "Let the daughter of Emerald Breeze, and her memory, rest in peace." Her head cocked, as if listening to something I couldn't hear. "You have your own troubles to worry about, without dredging up memories of the dead."

More crystalline tendrils—no, roots—shot up from the ground to wrap around me. To my horror, they actually managed to wrap about me. I was so startled by this turn of events that even had I the vocal cords to do so, I was unable to scream as I was dragged down, into the earth.

~ 18 ~

Two things hit me in rapid succession as I snapped into consciousness. The first thing that sunk in was that this was not my bedroom. I wasn't anywhere in the castle, or in a hospital, or even any sort of interior. I was standing on the path leading towards Fluttershy's cottage, just before dawn, and my legs ached, as though I'd been walking or even running all night.

The next thing to hit me was that a familiar silver pegasus filly stood right in my face, her glowing green eyes wide with shock. "Damn it!" she growled in a voice that was very unlike any foal I'd ever heard. "That nag has been busy!" Her eyes flicked up to a space above my head. "Of course they'd safeguard her mind after last time."

"What the fuck?" I hissed, taking a step back. My head began to ache as her gaze met mine once more. My heartrate spiked, and tears began to streak down my face. Between that dream and waking up here, not knowing what was going on, I wanted to cry and scream. "You! Why's it always you?"

Fear, rage, and hate bubbled up from within, causing my throat to burn with bile. My cutie-mark began to burn against my flank, and my back hoof twitched out a pattern faster than my brain could comprehend what it was doing. As my hoof came down on the etched pattern, a force shoved me backwards while also simultaneously driving the filly away from me, leaving a dusty crater some ten metres across between us. A sound like a gunshot echoed all around. "Who or what are you?"

When the dust cleared, the filly was no longer looking at me. Rather, she was looking into the skies behind me. Following her gaze, I saw four ponies approaching rapidly in a wedge formation. Once I returned my attention to her, my mind grew fuzzy. The space above her forehead glowed a sickly green as my eyes met hers. "Child, hear me and obey," she said in an unearthly tone that seared into my mind. I don't know how I knew, but she was imprinting some sort of command into my mind once more. Once more? Slowly, using the lip of the crater to hide my movements, I wrote out four sun-glyphs as she spoke. "You will speak no words of our meeting, and you will not so much as think of me until next we meet. To this I bind you, and thus you shall obey."

The filly—I know she said her name to me at some point—took a step back. A ring of green flame surrounded her as she sunk into the ground, her eyes never leaving mine until she was gone. Almost immediately, I was beginning to forget. Something bad had happened again, and my mind was being fucked with for sure... but now I was certain it wasn't ponies I had to worry about.

I stepped aside, careful to avoid the message carved into the dirt, and turned to face the oncoming ponies. At the front of the group that touched down in front of me was a bat pony, sans her armour, holding some sort of amulet. Directly behind her was Twilight Sparkle, almost aglow with fury once more. To either side were guard ponies in their shiny bronze plate and centurion helmets. Revelry's MPs.

Twilight immediately pushed past Evening Script to come check me over. "Anon!" she cried, forcibly hugging me, and sending something tumbling from atop my head. "Are you alright?"

I was very much not alright. I'd gone to bed in my pillow nest like normal, excited to have a chance at doing some more magic, and maybe prepping a medallion with the light spell etched in it. Then, I find myself having some awful dream about a runaway filly dying in a ravine and maybe meeting horse Jesus before being dragged down to hell. As if that wasn't bad enough, I woke up in the middle of the road doing... something.

"No," I murmured, burying my face into the fluff of her chest as It tried my best not to break down. "I don't know how I got here or what I was doing, and it scares the hell out of me. I know something's happening but I can't..." A twinge of pain lanced behind my eye. "I'm not allowed to..." I cried out this time as the pain struck harder. "Damn it!"

Pushing away from Twilight, I pointed down at the letters I'd carved into the ground. There, sitting beside the stuffed opossum that had fallen from atop my head, G E A S. Evidently, I'd broken some sort of rule of whatever had been tampering with my mind, because it felt like the world began to spin. I barely had the wherewithal to pick up the plush before I found myself throwing up and falling onto my side.

"Corporal, take Anon back to the castle, brief your sergeant, and then contact the local guard regiment," Twilight growled. Her mane was flickering with flame again. "My ward... my friend is being targeted, and I fear somepony doing this to send a message. I don't care if they have to turn this entire town upside down and changeling-check every single pony to find the one responsible."

"Yes ma'am," Evening Script said with a salute, although there was an unsure look about her. Her indigo mane hid her eyes as she strode up to me, but somehow I could tell that she was disturbed. For that matter, how had I even gotten past five royal guards completely undetected? No way I could've done that on their own. "...but, every single pony?"

Twilight just gave her a look that could've melted titanium, causing the bat pony to swallow loudly. Without further ado, she gently bit down on the scruff of my neck and took off. It was slightly uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt, as if ponies were intended to carry their young like kittens.

As I hung in the Corporal's grip, the world still spinning as she flew, my teeth ground together as my jaw tensed with rage. If I find whoever's doing this to me, I thought darkly, thinking of how scared and angry Twilight looked, You might not get your own crack at them, Twilight.