Chapter 1: A Change is Starting with Me
Author's Note
Beta read by SigmasonicX and Casketbase77.
Chapter 1: A Change is Starting with Me
Moonbow Shine pushed aside the thick undergrowth with her thin antler. She'd never ventured this deep into the Mysticwood before, but a piece of paper fluttering down from the sky had caught her attention, and she'd pranced off to find it without a second thought. Paper was a luxury in her village, a relic of a bygone time when kirin were still in contact with ponies; the elders forbade them from harming trees in any way.
A variety of twigs and leaves were caught in her blue mane, and her cloven hooves were coated in a thin layer of mud; she definitely needed to wash when she got home. An adorable little wasp landed on the ridge of dark-purple scales above her snout, and it tickled, so she sneezed. To her dismay, it flew away. She caught a glimpse of something yellowish-grey, as delicate as butterfly wings, caught between some brambles next to a stream. She was so close! Giddily, she sped up into a gallop.
…And tripped over a root, receiving a mouthful of ferns and some scratches on her forelegs for her troubles. As soon as she spat them out, she gasped: she'd dislodged the paper! It was seconds away from falling into the stream, its contents forever lost to a watery grave. The elders could vaguely remember when kirin could levitate objects and skip on water, but those days were long before her lifetime. She didn’t even have enough time to stand up! Thinking quickly, she reached out a forehoof and grasped the delicate thing between her toes. Good save!
When Moonbow took a look at the tattered piece of paper, she felt a jolt of disappointment. There wasn't much on it, just a crude map of the continent with arrows pointing to the southwest coast. It was clearly drawn by a foal, not in crayons, but in a sticky green substance that definitely wasn’t ink. But when she noticed the written message underneath, her face broke out into a grin.
To all the creatures of the world — you have friends in Seafey's Hive!
The eatery was the heart of Seafey’s Hive. While its grey, papery, hole-ridden walls the height of an auditorium would look off-putting to most species, changelings met here every morning to mingle before going about their day. Solifuge had almost finished her tray of jellied beetles when her brood-brother sat down next to her. She thought it tasted good, like everything they served, but she couldn’t help but feel like something was missing.
"You're not normally this late for breakfast, Phalanx," she said.
"Well… uh…” Phalanx’s orange eyes darted back and forth. “I was tired from patrols last night, that's all!"
“Really?” Sol replied, playfully bumping her leg against his elytra. “Because the last time I checked, you don’t work the night shift.” She always thought the night patrols were pointless — they rarely found anything out-of-the-ordinary — but Queen Rostrum was obsessed with security.
Phalanx sighed, taking a long look at his plate of maggot tarts. “Fine, I overslept again.” He scooped up a tart with his forked tongue and swallowed it whole. "But it's important to be well-rested on a day like this! You still going as a pony for the festival? Princess Sprinkly Glitter or something?"
"Of course! Seafey Day isn't just the anniversary of our hive — it's a celebration of all changeling history!" She slammed her hoof against the rocky table for emphasis, causing the jellies on her tray to jump. "Princess Starlight Glimmer helped King Thorax the Great realise that changelings could metamorphose. Without her, we'd still be starving and riddled with holes! I studied all the historical records I could find — Thorax was friends with Dragon Lord Ember, and her memoirs have a lot of information about Equestria."
Phalanx leaned against the table, and asked a question that made Sol pause: "Why are you so obsessed with ponies, anyway?”
Sol contemplated her tray while deciding what to say next. “Because they’re an example we should learn from!” she said, her voice equal parts enthusiastic and frustrated. “Over a thousand years ago, their nation was the most prosperous in the world, where all creatures lived together in harmony.”
“Hence why they’re all still prancing around in their utopia… oh, wait.” Phalanx leaned closer to her. “Admit it, Sol, you need to stop living in the past.”
Sol stood up, frowning. "Look, I don't know everything, okay?" She turned away, opened her magenta elytra, and flew towards her living quarters.
That afternoon, Sol eagerly skittered to the beach where the hive’s three-thousand or so changelings were gathering to begin the Seafey Day celebration. They were all wearing costumes — most made of papier-mâché like hers, a few made of more precious materials such as silk — to honour the days when changelings could shapeshift. She would’ve flown, but hers covered her wings. The few surviving portraits of Starlight didn’t have wings, which was odd, because she thought all pony princesses had them.
Since Sol was near the front of the crowd, she could see Queen Rostrum impatiently tapping her hoof as she waited to deliver her speech. The guards formed a semicircle in front of her. Sol spotted Phalanx nearby, who stepped towards her as soon as they made eye contact. With his back covered in sheets of paper crudely dyed cyan, he was probably meant to be dressed as General Pedipalps, the captain of Queen Damselfly’s guard when she’d founded Seafey’s Hive.
“I see I failed to change your mind,” he half-whispered, eyeing Sol’s costume from the navy and magenta mane tied to her horn that trailed down the back of her neck, to the lilac greaves that covered her forelegs.
“Thanks,” Sol retorted. “I made it myself. Besides, shouldn’t you be focusing on guard duty?”
“Well, uh, only the highest-ranking guards are in charge of protecting the queen,” Phalanx said quickly.
“And I should be one of them,” an awfully familiar voice whined, and Sol and Phalanx sighed in unison. Their brood-brother Viceroy was almost unrecognisable under his costume; his red chitin was covered by a black cloak adorned with silken, indigo wings, and he wore a gaudy pair of purple-tinted sunglasses that obscured his green eyes. He kept looking over to the queen, as if hoping she’d look back at him. “Who’re you supposed to be dressed as?”
Sol held her head high. “Princess Starlight Glimmer, ally of King Thorax the Great. And you?”
“Well I’m dressed as Pharynx,” Viceroy boasted, pushing his chest out. “The real Pharynx, that is. He was Thorax’s brother, and he knew better than to submit to the ponies’ pacifist doctrine. He wanted changelings to defend themselves! But no, he had to metamorphose like the rest of our ancestors…” He scraped his hooves against the sand and scowled as if they offended him. “And when the queen realises I'm the only sensible changeling in this generation, she’ll choose me as her heir!”
Sol swore she heard Phalanx mutter, “Good luck with that.”
“ATTENTION, LOYAL SUBJECTS!” Queen Rostrum’s booming voice silenced the crowd’s myriad of murmurs as they all turned to look at her. She spread out her elegant, golden wings until they pointed skywards. Many larvae gasped in awe as the sun shone through them like stained-glass windows. “On this day 227 years ago, Queen Damselfly and her brave soldiers endured a perilous journey west to found a new hive…”
She closed her elytra and went on for several minutes, detailing how they’d braved thunderstorms, blizzards, and the horrors that lurked in the Mysticwood along the way. Sol knew this story like the veins on her tail, but it never failed to grasp her attention. She’d only ventured beyond the hive’s borders a couple of times, but imagining how big the world was made her heart race. However, there was one part that rubbed her the wrong way.
“...General Pedipalps’ quick thinking allowed him to emerge victorious against the savage hordes of griffons. To this day, our guards are trained in his methods, ready to defend the hive from outsiders.”
“But why do we have to?” Sol muttered. On most days, nobody would’ve heard her… but on this day, the hive was dead-silent and the wind was still.
“Excuse me?” Queen Rostrum spat, peering down at Sol through her glasses. The other changelings stepped away from her as if she had a contagious disease.
Sol hesitated, but refused to back down. “Why do we need so much security?” Carefully, she peeled the papier-mâché shell off her back and hovered up to look the queen in the eye. “According to all our records, no outsiders have tried to invade our hive since it was founded. What good are we doing by isolating ourselves?”
“So what do you propose, little nymph? Should we let ourselves be taken over, in the event that we are invaded again?” Queen Rostrum leaned towards Sol; her eyes were as blue as the current weather, but her gaze was as fierce as the sea during a storm.
“No.” Sol turned slightly to address the audience as well as the queen. She took a deep breath; this was her time to shine. “Over a thousand years ago, there was a changeling named Ocellus. King Thorax the Great chose her to learn about friendship under Princess Starlight Glimmer and the other Elements of Harmony. She made five friends, each of a different species, and together they helped save the world!”
The crowd murmured.
“She has a point.”
“What's an Element of Harmony?”
“Can we just get the festival started already?”
“My point is, what good are we doing by isolating ourselves?” Sol continued, now fully facing the crowd. “We shouldn't spend all our time preparing for invasions that will never happen! If we started making friends with the creatures we share this world with, we'd all be better off.”
There was a moment of silence, and then a dozen or so changelings cheered. The queen waved her pink forelegs in an X-shape, gesturing for them to shut up.
“That's all well and good, but Seafey's Day isn't about celebrating hypotheticals.” Queen Rostrum coughed. “With that interruption out of the way… LET THE FESTIVAL BEGIN!”
While most of the crowd dispersed to frolic in the sea or play carnival games, Sol landed on the ground, her wings drooping. Don't be disappointed, she thought. You got a few changelings to agree with you! That's more than nothing! But her own reassurances felt hollow.
“Your Majesty,” a nearby guard shout-whispered, pointing towards the outskirts of the bay. “Something's coming from the direction of Mysticwood!”
Queen Rostrum whipped around. “NIRIK!”
Chapter 2: I'll Fly Until the End of the Sky
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Chapter 2: I'll Fly Until the End of the Sky
In an instant, a tsunami of panic swept over the hive. The senior guards rushed towards the edge of the beach, polearms at the ready, while the queen and civilians fled for cover. All except Sol, who stayed where she was.
Phalanx ripped his costume off and shouted, “What are you waiting for? RUN!” at her before rushing to join the guards.
But Sol didn’t want to run. Curious to see this nirik, she perched on top of one of the hive’s sandstone spires to watch from a distance. The highest-ranking guards formed a wall around the edge with their bodies, with the lower-ranking ones standing behind them as backup. She saw a red smudge — almost certainly Viceroy — try to shove himself into the front row, only to be pushed back.
When the nirik came close, the guards closest to it pointed their polearms horizontally. It didn’t seem afraid in the slightest, though, because it leaped over them with the grace of a pebble skimming on water, then galloped towards the beach. There was a lot of commotion from the guards, but even on a windless day like this, Sol was too far away to hear what they were saying.
“HI NEW FRIENDS!” the nirik yelled at the top of its — no, her lungs. Sol’s ears pricked up, and she flew towards the ground, staying in the hive’s shadow so the guards wouldn't notice her. In the distance, she heard the captain order the others to split up.
The nirik pranced around an unoccupied part of the beach with her head held high, looking around. “Why’s it so quiet?” she asked the air. "Ooh, is this a surprise party?"
Sol resisted the urge to slam her hoof against her face. She checked to see if there were any guards within earshot, and breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed most of them were gathered around the front of the hive. She took one cautious step out of the shadows and beckoned the nirik closer. "No, silly, they're scared of you!" she shout-whispered.
"Well I don't think I'm scary…" the nirik complained.
"They think you'll—" Sol looked from side to side and noticed a few guards getting closer. She shepherded the nirik into a nearby crevice in the side of the hive. “They think you’ll burn this place down! Not that I think you would, since changelings and niriks and all other creatures used to—”
In response, the nirik giggled. “Nirik? Those haven’t existed since our grandparents’ time!” Sol tilted her head, unsure of how to respond. “We’re called kirin. Niriks are what we turn into when we get angry. Well, we used to, anyway.”
Sol heard two sets of hoofbeats heading towards them. “Run!” she told the kirin, leading her to a spot further behind the hive. The kirin’s hooves didn’t make a sound, as if she was skipping on the surface of a calm river. After she caught her breath, Sol asked, “So what happened?”
“One day, all the magic… poof! Disappeared!” the kirin exclaimed rather loudly.
Sol paused for a moment as a realisation struck her. So THAT’S why changelings lost the ability to shapeshift! “Do you know why?” she asked. “Oh, and keep quiet.”
“Nope!” said the kirin cheerfully. “No-one does. Oh! I almost forgot to introduce myself. My name is Moonbow Shine, but you can call me Moony.” She bowed her head towards Sol.
“And I’m Solifuge — Sol for short,” Sol replied. She kept her voice low, but her legs were trembling with excitement. “Do you kirin always greet each other by bowing, or is it only when you introduce yourselves?”
Moony nodded. “Always.”
“Good to know. Ooh, I’ve got so many questions I want to ask!” Sol had to resist the urge to squee. “How long does it take to brush your mane? Where do you live? What do you have for breakfast?”
“Whoa — slow down,” said Moony, raising a hoof. “One question at a time. It takes a few minutes every morning to brush my mane, maybe more if there’s a lot of twigs caught in it—”
She was interrupted by two changelings marching towards them. One of them was Phalanx, who had a bucket of water dangling from his T-shaped horn. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Solifuge?” he demanded.
The other was Viceroy. “Yeah, don’t make me use this!” He jabbed a polearm towards Moony, who jumped slightly.
Sol hovered up. "She's not here to hurt us." Moony grinned and waved at the guards. "The niriks are really called kirin, and they can't set themselves on fire anymore—"
“That’s what they want you to think!” Viceroy snapped. He snatched the bucket of water and dumped it over Moony. Sol gasped, but Moony just shook herself dry.
Phalanx shook his head and sighed. "Calm down, Viceroy. Jumping to conclusions will only make the situation worse."
“Yes!” Sol gasped. “That’s why you have to listen to me! As I was saying, we’re not the only creatures who lost our magic. And if this really was an attack, Moonbow Shine wouldn’t have come alone.” She gestured at Moony, who grinned and waved.
“Are you sure?” Phalanx narrowed his eyes. “Other… kirin could be hiding in wait for all we know. Sorry, but I’ll have to take her to Queen Rostrum for questioning.” He beckoned Moony to follow him.
“No,” said Sol, standing her ground in front of Phalanx. She made eye contact with Moony, flicked an elytra sideways, and winked. Then, she leaped forward, grabbed Viceroy’s polearm, and took off into the skies.
“Get back here!” Viceroy shouted. Neither he nor Phalanx had wings, so all they could do was watch as Sol spiralled around the hive’s highest spires. While the tiny red speck ran away — probably to get backup — Phalanx chased after Moony, who was making a beeline for the outskirts. Phalanx had plenty of stamina in his burly physique, but he could barely keep up with the lithe and agile kirin, who skipped as if this were a game.
Sol did a loop-de-loop, then tucked in her wings and dived towards Viceroy, now accompanied by a few older, taller guards. The air resistance’s howl blocked out every sound except the rapid pulse of her blood beneath her ears, but it felt so exhilarating. She had to land to catch her breath for a moment, but started flying again as soon as Viceroy lunged at her.
“Catch me if you can!” she taunted as she darted towards the shoreline. He growled and chased after her as fast as his skinny red legs could carry him, but he barely had time to react before she threw his polearm into the ocean.
Sol barely heard Viceroy roar “NO!” followed by a splash as several older guards dived into the ocean to retrieve his polearm. She flew towards the sand dunes on the outskirts, where Moony was hiding in wait.
“Is it even possible to burn down a beach?” Moony muttered.
Sol scrunched up her face, unsure of how to answer that. “They'll still be looking for you. We've got to go.”
Phalanx arrived in Queen Rostrum’s throne room almost a minute before Viceroy, who was panting as he climbed the spiral staircase. He looked up at the vast ceiling; there were silk garlands hanging in front of the windows, and the room was so high up that he could only see the sky through them.
The queen’s pink chitin stood out against her grey basalt throne, flanked by a pair of high-ranking guards. Phalanx bowed his head as he approached her, the air thick with silence.
“Your Majesty,” he said, followed by a deep breath. “Viceroy and I cornered the kirin — nirik — but it evaded capture.”
Queen Rostrum stood up, the sound of her golden shoes echoing with the intensity of an earthquake. “I see… According to eyewitness reports, you were the closest to capturing this nirik. It seems awfully unlikely that you’d let it get away… unless you did it on purpose.”
“Hey, it wasn’t our fault!” Viceroy blurted out. “It was Solifuge’s! Um, Your Highestness.”
“What he says is true, Your Majesty,” Phalanx added. “Solifuge was helping the kirin to hide. When we found them, she stole Viceroy’s polearm as a distraction.”
There was a pregnant pause as Queen Rostrum stopped to think. Phalanx’s pulse raced as he imagined what his punishment would be — she could send him to the dungeons, or to bootcamp, or to clean the eatery — and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when she peered down through her glasses and said, “Phalanx. Viceroy. If you wish to redeem yourselves, track down Solifuge and the nirik and bring them to me.”
Sol zipped through the fields beyond the Seafey Coast while Moony chased close behind her. She didn’t have a destination in mind; she just wanted to get so far away that any guards pursuing them would get tired and go home. They crossed hills, forests, and moors, until the towering hive was completely out of sight. As the sun set, they decided to rest beneath a lonely tree atop a cliff.
“Whoa,” Moony gasped, looking over the edge.
Sol, who was perched on a low branch, turned her head to see what she was looking at; below them was a dark forest that sprawled all the way to the horizon. It was an amazing sight, she had to admit. “What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s the Mysticwood!” Moony exclaimed. “I’ve lived there my whole life, but I’ve never seen it from above before! I think I can see my village there…” She narrowed her eyes and pointed in the general direction of a barely visible clearing, a hole in the sea of trees. “Or maybe it’s there… Ooh, it might be that one!”
“What’s your village like?” Sol asked, fluttering off the branch and landing next to Moony.
“It’s pretty quiet,” replied Moony, lying down on the grass. “But there’s plenty to do! Like chasing bugs, gardening, learning about Twilight’s Equest—”
“Who?”
“Princess Twilight Sparkle! You know, the pony you’re dressed as?” Moony gestured towards the fake mane that was still hanging by a thread from Sol’s horn.
Sol tilted her head. “I thought she was called Starlight Glimmer.”
Moony giggled. “Starlight was Twilight’s student! What books have you been reading?”
Sol stomped for emphasis. “Records from King Thorax the Great’s time!” She paused and placed a hoof under her chin. “Though come to think of it, Queen Damselfly couldn’t bring an entire library with her when she founded our hive… and there was that flood a few years ago that destroyed some of the oldest scrolls…”
“If you want more detailed records, the hippogriffs are your best bet.” She pointed towards a mountain in the east. “Their nearest city is on top of Mt. Zephyr.”
“It’s amazing that you know all this!” exclaimed Sol, leaning towards Moony. “Is there any more you could tell me?”
Moony nodded rapidly. “Uh-huh. We kirin deliver messages between the other species, since we’re the only creatures who know how to navigate the Mysticwood. It’s so big that you can’t even fly across it in one go. I’ve never been to Mt. Zephyr before, but our village is in the middle of one of their trade routes, so I’ve guided a lot of hippogriffs through our neck of the woods.”
Sol was about to ask what they were trading, but then she noticed that the sky was almost completely black, and her wings still ached from all that flying. “Let’s head there tomorrow.” She curled up in a comfortable position underneath the tree and yawned, but shivered when a cold breeze blew past her. “Do you know how to start a fire?”
“Nope!” exclaimed Moony. “But I can do this.” She lay down next to Sol, who huddled closer. Her tangled mane and tail felt as warm and soft as silk, so much cosier than her sandy living quarters in the hive, and she soon fell asleep.
