Different

I had bolted up that morning, hearing another knock at my door. Remembering what had happened last time there was a knock at my door; I felt uneasy. Quickly jumping up, I transformed into my pony form and ran downstairs. I was hoping that there would be no guards this time. I had a huge sigh of relief when I looked through the peephole of the front door.

Fluttershy was outside knocking on my door. I relaxed a little bit and opened the door for her. I looked at her with calm emotion, "Good morning, Fluttershy. Did you need something?"

Fluttershy smiled up at me, "Hello Blue, I was wondering if I could get your help with something. You see, I was transporting my recycling into town as the recycling company doesn't make their rounds out here. Having a lot of animals that need feeding, I use a lot of food containers that need to be recycled. For some reason though, one of the wheels of my cart fell off and it is too much for me to carry on my own."

"Sure, just let me get something small to put in my saddle bag to snack on later." I said this as I quickly went into the kitchen. The kitchen could be seen from the front door. I opened the fridge and went through my options again. I had picked up a few oranges and threw them in my food ration pocket. Normally, I always have extra rations in my bag used for emergencies. Once I collected a few oranges I went back outside to help Fluttershy after ensuring my cottage was locked up.

We both walked down the dirt path to see her cart on the side of the road. Her wheel had not only been broken off but was broken in half. After a closer inspection, I had found that it was due to wood rot. The recycling was luckily in trash bags so all we had to do was tie some of the bags together and carry them on our backs.

"You have got to take better care of your cart Fluttershy. If it was something like an injured animal, and I wasn't here to help you, then you would have been in a deeper situation." I said this as we started walking into town. Fluttershy looked down in slight defeat.

"Thank you for helping. I will definitely try to take better care of my things. Luckily, Apple Jack is really good at fixing this type of thing." Fluttershy said this as she was walking in front of me. I had no idea where the recycling center was, so she had taken the lead.

The walk to the recycling center had not taken too long. After helping Fluttershy go through the recycling, I waved her goodbye and sat down at a close by park bench. I looked up at the sun and noticed it had just come up past the horizon. This meant that I still had an hour or so until work had started. I figured that I would just go see if Izzy was awake. Surely there would be no harm in going to work early, would there?

After a few minutes of a morning walk, I made my way up to the tea shop. Looking through the window, I had seen that Izzy was awake and in the kitchen. I knocked on the front door to see if she would hear it and let me in.

My attempt at getting her attention worked as I could see that she had started walking to the door. When she had open it and seen me, she had given a confused look. "Good morning, Blue. What are you doing here so early? You still have an hour or so until the shop opens."

I had shaken my head in response, "I know. I was helping Fluttershy with her recycling this morning and had not realized what time it was. Instead of heading home after helping her, I figured I would see if I could just come here early to help you out with opening."

She giggled slightly, opening the door to let me in. "Sure, that works for me. I am usually awake a few hours before the shop opens anyways to give myself time to organize my tea supplies. This is also to give myself more time to fully wake up. You can go ahead and start morning clean up if you want."

I nodded my head and started work. Once again, this really did not take me that long to finish. It had also given me more than enough time to count the register. Once I had finished the morning routine, I still had about forty minutes left until the shop opened up. I used this time to eat one of my oranges for breakfast. It was small enough to give me energy until our snack break. Knowing that it was Tuesday, I knew that there were a few sandwiches left over from the day prior. Instead of throwing them out, which was a waste of food, we would often eat them. They might have been a day old, but free food is free food.

After I had finished, Izzy had peeked her head through the kitchen door. "Hey Blue, do you think you could help me finish cleaning up the kitchen? I need to make a run over to meet with Jasmine Leaf. She runs another tea shop, except instead of selling made tea she sells the ingredients so ponies can make the tea at home. I usually sell her the left overs from my garden."

"Sure, what all needs to be done still?" I said, walking into the kitchen.

Izzy looked back at me before pointing to various parts of the kitchen. "The counter tops still need to be wiped down, the stoves need to be cleaned a tiny bit, the ovens need a wipe down, and the dried off dishes need to be put away. Finding where they go should be very easy. You just need to be careful around the stoves that are on right now as I'm getting some water ready for the tea."

I looked at her before getting to work, "Sound easy enough. How long will you be gone for?"

"Usually no longer than fifteen minutes or so. Her store is not that far away from here." Izzy said, leaving the kitchen to go sell her tea. I turned around and started cleaning the kitchen. This was a fairly easy task as she had already cleaned most of it. After spending a few minutes wiping down all the surfaces and cleaning the stoves, being careful not to get near the stoves with the boiling water on them, I had made my way to the dry rack next to the sink. There were a few plates, some tea cups, and some silverware.

Putting the plates away was easy enough as I knew that she kept them above the sink. Reaching this was easy enough without magic as she had a stepstool with locking wheels. I could move the stepstool to where I needed to, lock the wheels, and climb up with ease. I did this without any issues with the plates and the tea cups. The tea cups were in the cabinet next to the plates.

The silverware went into a drawer next to the ovens. However, I had noticed that she kept the bigger knives on top of the fridge in a knife block. As I went to place the bigger knives up in the knife block, I could feel that something was not right. For whatever reason, the wheel locking mechanism failed, and the stepstool had shot out from underneath me. While trying not to fall, I had subconsciously grabbed the top of the fridge hoping to stop myself from falling. What I did not realize at the time was the fridge was not one of the types that were bolted to the floor. As I had grabbed the back of the fridge, it had started to lean forward, and I lost my grip. As this happened, the knife block had fallen off the fridge with me. This ended with me on the floor, and a decent sized slice in my upper right arm. One of the knives had managed to fall in a way where it cut my arm without sticking into it.

Worry had filled my eyes and I was now bleeding. Keep in mind that changelings have green blood instead of the normal red blood that ponies have. This is because our blood does not carry oxygen the same way it does for a pony. I looked around the kitchen to find something to stop the bleeding and clean up any blood that was on the floor. This was because I knew that if Izzy walked in and saw that I was bleeding green, it would be over for me. I had found some paper towels and duct tape. My goal was to clean the wound with paper towels and duct tape the wound shut.

As soon as I had started working on cleaning the wound, Izzy had come back inside. The sudden realization that I did not have enough time to clean the blood from the knife and floor made me freeze as she walked into the kitchen. Izzy stopped and stared at me as I was above the sink trying to rinse out the cut. She looked down at the mess of the floor and then back up at me.

"Blue... What did you spill? I do not remember making Matcha Tea, or any tea that was quite this green recently for that matter." After Izzy had said this, I quickly grabbed a bunch of paper towels, turned off the sink, applied as much pressure to the wound as possible, and turned around to face her while keeping my wound hidden from her. This was to hopefully prevent her from seeing that it was coming from me. In the rush of things, I did not have time to duct tape the wound so that it would not bleed. I could tell that she had a feeling I was covering something up.

Izzy walked up to the small pool of green blood, still not quite realizing what it was, and picked up the knife. She could tell that it was not tea because upon closer inspection, the liquid was too thick to be tea. It had clicked in her mind what it might have been. "Blue, what are you hiding?" She said this, walking closer to me while still holding the knife with her magic.

I looked at her, feeling that the blood was making its way through the paper towels. I did not know what to say. Izzy walked up to me, connecting the dots, and started to get angry. "Blue, show me your arm."

I sighed in defeat, knowing that she was about to find out what I was one way of another. I looked at her and sighed before continuing. "Izzy, I am so sorry. I did not want you to find out this way." After saying this, I removed the paper towels. Izzy froze from the rush of emotions inside her after she had seen my wound. She knew instantly what that meant.

Izzy looked at me for a few seconds before tears had started rolling down her cheeks. She was so filled with anger, sadness, and confusion that she did not know what to do. Izzy left the kitchen for a few seconds. I could see through the kitchen window the she was locking the doors and lowering what looked like shutters. This was to prevent anyone from seeing what she was about to do, and to prevent me from running away. When she made her way into the kitchen, she had also locked all the kitchen doors as well. This meant that I was locked in a small room with someone who just found out that I was a changeling.

"What did you do to Blue? Where is my friend?" She said this, slowly walking closer to me. I did not know what to say, but I knew I had to say something.

"I... I am Blue! Please, just let me explain myself." I said, fearing what was about to happen.

"BULLSHIT! My friend is not a changeling, he is far too nice and caring to be a monster like you." Being so filled with anger and confusion, she had looked at the knife she was holding. Looking around the kitchen, she had seen there was a better option. Izzy picked up and levitated the large boiling pot of water and dumped it on top of me. The pain from this alone was enough to rip me from my disguise. She was looking face to face with a changeling. Though, she did pause for a second after seeing that I was entirely blue even in changeling form. The steam from my now burning skin had started to fill my lungs as all I could do was scream.

After a few painful seconds, I looked back up to Izzy who was now levitating a bunch of knife around my body, ready to impale me from every angle. I had started pleading with her. "Izzy, I swear it is me. I know this is hard to take in, but I have been a changeling this entire time. I do not mean anything harmful to you or anyone else. Just please let me explain myself."

Her eyes went from confused to pure fire. "Shut the fuck up. You seriously expect me to believe that someone as nice and trust worthy as Blue could have really been a bug this entire time?" As she said this, she rammed a knife into my left hind leg so that I could not run away. She then took the knife out, knowing it would make me bleed out even more. "If you really are Blue, then tell me something only he would know."

I sat in thought, or whatever thought I could get out through this severe burning and bleeding. Having just been stabbed did not help me think, though I was able to get something out. "Do... do you remember the shop we visited Friday? You had seen that there were some curtains that had been printed upside down. They were... butterflies."

She thought for a second, then came to the conclusion that this was not enough to prove anything. She placed one of the knives that she was levitating up to my right ear and sliced off the tip. I could feel the ever growing pool of blood around me as I was on the floor still sitting in hot water. I could also now feel my right ear being pooled by blood. She then placed one of the large knives at my throat. I could feel that she wanted to cut my head off, but something in her made her stop as she simply held it there.

She yelled, "That is NOT ENOUGH to prove that you are Blue. If you really are Blue, and I really hope you aren't, then explain how my mother died. I have only told a few people this, plus when I told you it was here at the shop and there was no one else around." I could tell that it was starting to click in her mind that I really was a changeling the entire time.

I paused again for thought, the pain now so strong that I started becoming numb. This was also due to the blood loss. I looked up at her, tears of fear in my eyes. "She.. She died from a depression induced heart attack. This was be-because she lost her husband to the Canterlot Wedding Fiasco."

Her hearing this and confirming that I really was a changeling the entire time had sent her into emotional shock. She had become so heart broken from this information that she let go of all the knives and started crying. She was so lost with these new facts that the world around her seemed to be falling apart. "I can't believe that I let a changeling get so close to me. I can't believe that I thought I could actually trust you and call you one of my closest friends. I can't believe I was friends with a mass murderer."

"I... I never meant to hurt anyone. I did not participate in the Royal Wedding Fiasco. I swear I-" I was not able to finish the sentence before I could feel myself being lifted up in her magic. She was lifting me up by just my throat. She was trying to choke me out, not letting me finish my sentence.

She looked back up to me with darkness in her eyes. "Liar, you are a fucking liar. Nothing you love sucking, pony killing, life stealing, family destroying, brainwashing fucking bugs ever say is honest. Hurting ponies is all you know how to do. I won't let you hurt me anymore. I won't let you hurt anyone anymore." I could feel myself starting to lose consciousness. I said the only thing I had enough energy left to say. "I... I am not lying... I hate hurting... If I was not on your... s-side... I would not have killed... that changeling on Saturday."

I closed my eyes and prepared myself for death. The room had filled with silence, or at least from what I could tell as I had one ear drowned with blood. Right before I was going to pass out from being choked to death, I had been dropped. I gasped for air, wondering why she did not finish me off.

After coming back to my senses, I had look up at Izzy. There was something about her that had thrown me off. She seemed to have this strange alien emotion that I had not yet seen before. It was like there was something deep down inside her that had told her not to kill me. After a few long and painful seconds, she had looked back at me. "That... That doesn't make any sense. You really have been a changeling this entire time. So that means you are still the Blue that decapitated that changeling. Why would you kill your own kind, unless you really were on our side." She sat down, her face wet from her tears. She was so filled with new emotions that had never come across her before.

I thought for a second but decided to talk once again. "It was a hard decision for me. I knew that changeling. I also knew that if I wanted to show that I was really willing to help the ponies with this upcoming war that I needed to do what I had to do. I killed my own kind because I knew that if I was on your side of the war that I would have to make such decisions. I am already known as a traitor to the hive, so I am on a path that I cannot turn away from. I promise you, I might be a changeling, but I am different. Please, just trust me. I know this is hard for you, but I really do want friendship in my life. I want to create peace in this world."

Izzy glared up to me, before she simply looked down and sighed. She did not know what to do at this point. She could not handle all the emotions that she was going through. We sat in silence for a few minutes before Izzy then stood up. She unlocked the back door and went outside.

After a few seconds, she came back inside with a wagon. This was a medium sized wagon that she used to carry her plants around the garden. She the pointed at the wagon with a very stern look on her face. "Get in, I am taking you to see Princess Twilight. I'll let her decide your fate."

I did what she had told me to do. I did not want to give her any reason to finish me off. She covered me up with a thick blanket so that she could take the wagon through town without anyone seeing me inside. After a few minutes of cleaning her face and making herself look presentable she grabbed the cart and took me outside. "You are not to make any noises. I am taking you to the castle, so you need to be very quiet when we go past the guards protecting her castle doors." Izzy said this, making sure to lock the back door of the shop as we left.

Keeping quiet was very hard to do as the roads of Ponyville were quite bumpy. I was still bleeding, though I could tell it was not as much as in the beginning. My skin still very warm from the boiling water. I did my best to keep as quiet as possible, though I must admit it was one of the hardest thing for me to do.

I could not hear the outside conversation between Izzy and the guards once we had made our way up to the castle door. This was because my right ear was still filled with blood, and the blanket was thick enough to mute anything from the outside. After a few minutes of conversation, I could feel the wagon start moving again.

The ride became smooth as we were now in the long hallway of Twilight's Castle. This was enough to help me prepare myself for what was next to come. Though, I did not know where in the castle we were.

Suddenly, the cart had come to a stop. The only thing I could hear through the thick blankets after that point was the sound of Izzy saying, "I have something for you Princess. Please do with this trash what you will." After she had said this, the room was filled with silence.

I could very faintly hear the sound of someone walking up to the cart. Next thing I knew, the blanket that was covering me had be lifted off of me. I looked up to see a very surprised Twilight Sparkle. Twilight, due to being surprised, let out a huge magic blast that sent me and the cart flying across the room. I had hit the crystal walls with a large amount of force. This was enough to cause me to lose my breath for a few agonizing seconds.

Upon hearing the large blast, two royal guards had come into the room from the outside hallway. I had looked up and seen that I was in a new room. This was Twilights throne room. I knew that I was in huge trouble, so I did the only thing I could think to do. I stood up through the pain and bowed towards the princess.

I was only able to stand that pose for a short time before my leg had given out. As soon as I had fallen, the two royal guards had pinned me against the wall with their spears. One spear against my throat, ready to slice my neck open. The other against my chest, ready to pierce into my heart. I could tell that Twilight was very caught off guard. The royal guards looked to Twilight, ready for the final word.

Twilight did something that not only surprised me, but also the royal guards. She looked at us with an aura of ambivalence. "Hold on a second, there seems to be something off about changeling. Not only have I never seen a changeling bow to anyone other than Chrysalis, but I have never seen a changeling survive Izzy. I have also never seen a pure blue changeling before." After saying this, Twilight walked up to me precariously. "Who are you?"

I looked up to Twilight, making sure to be very careful about what I say. "You might not believe me when I say this, but I am Blue Shadow. I know this is a lot to take in, but I have been this way the entire time we knew each other. I am sorry to have lied to you, but I can explain."

Twilight paused for a second before continuing, "That... that is very hard to believe. However, that would answer my question of how you were able to convince Izzy not to kill you. I have... so many questions. Guards, take this changelings things and take him to the interrogation room."

My eyes went wide as I knew of the horrors that came from Twilight's interrogation room. I thought that as long as I gave her the information she wanted, I might be able to make it out alive. As soon as Twilight told the guards to take me to the interrogation room, one of the guards had removed my saddlebag and placed a blind fold over my eyes. This was to prevent me from knowing where the entrance to the room was. I did my best to limp along side these guards, who were ushering me to this hidden room.

A few minutes passed and we eventually made it to the interrogation room. As soon as I heard the door close behind me, my blindfold had been taken off. I looked around the room with horror. The room was filled with a large variety of torture machines and cages. It was just me, Twilight, and one very large royal guard.

Twilight had me sat on this metal chair. The royal guard then used leather straps to ensure that I stayed on this chair. They then hooked up a large device to my body. This device was a polygraph used to show if I was telling the truth or not. Twilight looked at me with anger in her eyes before speaking. "So, Blue, what are your intentions. Every time you lie or say something I do not like, large amounts of electricity will be passed through your body. With every lie you say, we will pump up the voltage until you are cooked alive."

Twilight looked at the royal guard and gave him a nod. The royal guard then flipped a switch that was connected to the chair via a cable. This sent a painful amount of electricity through my already burnt skin. I let out a large scream, but luckily this only lasted a few seconds. Twilight walked back up to me with a devilish smirk on her face. "That was only a small taste of what is to come your way if you do not give us what we want. Now, onto the first question. Why are you really here?"

I thought carefully, making sure that nothing I said was a lie, or said in a way that Twilight did not like. "Well, like I said last time we met, I am here because I wanted to start a new life. I really do not mean harm to anyone here. I know that this seems very strange, but I really am an outcast. I do not work with the hive."

Twilight looked over to the lie detector with confusion on her face. She looked closely and was caught even more off guard. "That... That can't be right. It says here that you are telling the truth. But, changelings... they don't usually tell the truth right away. That, and this information you're telling me doesn't sound like the plan of a changeling." Both Twilight and the royal guard sat there looking at each other. Twilight continued to the next question. "Ok, were you telling the truth during our last conversation about your past?"

Again, being very careful about what to say, I responded in a manner that did not give out any sign of aggression. "Y-yes, I really did spend the past few years in Manehattan as a pianist. This was not a cover up for being a spy. I really did just want a better life for myself."

Once again, both Twilight and the Royal guard looked at the lie detector. They were both dumbfounded as it came up with me telling the truth again. Twilight had thought for a second that maybe the polygraph was not configured correctly. "Ok, I want you to answer this next question, but I want you to lie. I just need to make sure that this lie detector is working correctly. What color are you?"

I looked up at both of them, clearly seeing confusion on their faces. They really did not think that a changeling could act the way I was acting. I looked at them with a serious face and said, "I am orange."

The lie detector went off, showing them that it was in fact working correctly. Twilight was shocked, but still came up with the next question thinking that it would throw me off. "Ok then changeling, are you willing to work with us, and give us all the hives secrets."

I looked up to them, my face still showing a serious look. "If I am being honest, which I kind of have to be, that was actually part of my plan. I had planned to move to Ponyville to start a new life, which was also part of my previous conversation with you. However, something I had not told you before was that I was waiting for the ponies of this town to trust me. I was eventually planning on getting with you, and your counsel, to reveal myself. I wanted to do it in a way that did not lead to my instant death. After getting to a point where you could trust that I was on your side, I was going to prove it even more by telling you all I know about the hives secrets and military tactics. I did not realize that you ponies were so untrusting of us that you were willing to kill a changeling publicly just to make an example out of them."

Again, both Twilight and the royal guard were at a loss of words after the polygraph came up clean. Twilight simply looked at me in pure disbelief. "I must admit, I did not think that changelings like you could really exist. Why would you tell me all this? Why, knowing that you were killing your own kind, did you still go on with decapitating that changeling?"

"Well, I did it because I know that war time is tough. I did what I needed to do in order to ensure I got everyone's trust. I wanted one of two things to happen. I was going to either find out if I could find a way to create a peace treaty between the hive and the ponies, or help the ponies fend off the hive in this upcoming war. That public decapitation though might make the peace treaty plan much more difficult though." I said, continuing to answer honestly.

Twilight and the guard looked at each other for a few seconds before leaving to have a conversation out of earshot. I was still bleeding, but at this point I could tell that most of the wounds were starting to get covered up with dry blood. I could tell that the sliced ear was going to take the most time to heal. The drying blood in my ear created a perfect blockage meaning I could only hear out of my left ear.

After being left alone for a few minutes, I was able to hear them walking back. Twilight then sat in front of me and continued, "Listen very carefully. This is something that I have never done before, but I am willing to listen to you. This does not mean that I trust you, but the events of this test, and you surviving Izzy's wrath, tell me that you are quite special. We are going to let you off of this chair and take you to our hidden prisoner holding area underneath the castle. It seems that you are willing to work with us, so tomorrow morning my friends and I are going to determine your fate. We were going to beat the truth out of you, but it would seem as though Izzy already did plenty of beating. We are going to blindfold you again and take you to a holding cell."

The royal guard had gotten up and placed the blindfold over my eyes and I was taken off of the chair. I was once again being led through the castle via a path that I was not allowed to see. A few minutes of painful walking pass as I get led into my cell. Once the blindfold had been removed, I could see that I was in a very small room. It had metal bars separating my small room from the rest of the castle. The room was lit by a very small light bulb hanging outside of the cell. The cell had one small bed in a corner, and a sink to allow prisoners to still have water. The cell was so small that if you laid out all the way you would be able to touch both walls. The bed had a single pillow and a thin but clean looking blanket. The floor and surrounding walls were made out of stone. There was a single guard who stood watch outside of the cell behind a protected glass barrier.

Twilight and the other guard had already left. I was now alone in this poorly lit room. I knew I was being watched by the royal guard, but due to him being placed in a separate room only watching me from behind a glass, I considered myself to be completely alone. I went up to the sink and checked to see if it had running water.

To my surprise, the sink water actually looked very clean. I used this time to thoroughly clean all of my wounds, being that they were still open and bleeding slightly. After what seemed like a very long time, I had managed to clean all the dry blood from my fur and ear. Cleaning out the ear was the most painful of all as the dry blood essentially dug deep into my ear canal. This cleaning process lasted a very long time. I noticed that I was still bleeding slightly from the ear after I had finished cleaning it. The other areas some how being covered with enough dry blood to act as a natural bandage.

I did not think that the guard watching me from behind the glass could hear me, but I decided to ask him a question. "Excuse me sir, I know this sounds a bit unorthodox, but do you have some bandage wrap that I could use on my ear?"

I was surprised when I had seen him press a button and respond back to me via an intercom system. "We are not authorized to do anything outside of what the Princess tells us to do. Princess Twilight had told me to watch over you and make sure you do not try to escape. That is all I am going to do."

I sighed, knowing that the guard was just doing his job. I sat and thought for a minute before looking at the bed. I noticed that the bed sheet looked clean. I had assumed that the sheets were changed every time a new prisoner was in the holding cell. I managed to tear off a small bit of the corner of the bed sheet and used it to wrap up my ear. I was not sure how missing a part of my ear was going to affect future transformations, but I would find out one way or another. I figured that this was not the best place to try a transformation as the guard might think it was part of an escape plan. After ensuring that my ear was wrapped up in a way to prevent any more bleeding, and that the rest of my wounds were cleaned, I laid down on the bed. I had to lie in a way that would not cause me to lie on any of my wounds. I ended up just having to lay down on my stomach.

I knew that these next few days were about to be tough, but as long as I kept showing the ponies that I was not harmful I figured that I would be fine. The next thing I needed to do was get judged by Twilight and her closest friends. Either that, or Twilight was going to find a way to execute me publicly. The irony in this situation was something that made me giggle a tiny bit in this dark situation. Twilight finding out that the one pony she had complete the first public execution of a changeling, was also a changeling themselves. I laid down, finally being able to relax for the first time today. It was not the best night of sleep, but it was still comfier than sleeping on the cold streets of Manehattan.