In retrospect, Moondancer supposed, the name Tap Out should have been a bit of a warning sign.
She’d never been one for the romantic scene. The prospect of inviting another pony into her life, so close to her heart, again, had been a touchy subject for quite some time. But old wounds had been, unexpectedly, stitched up. And though healing was still a fair distance in the future, the process had been started. She supposed it was better than nothing.
It left her feeling, for what felt like the first time, adventurous. Willing to push beyond self-imposed walls, begin to rebuild something which could constitute a social circle. The endeavor had been embarked upon somewhat shakily, with a number of missteps and stumbles, but it had never once stopped. Misunderstandings could be repaired, words could be exchanged, and hurt could be addressed before they turned into the sort of scars she was familiar with. And then a close friend approached her in confidence, spoke of something new….
Dating. Conventionally unpredictable. An exercise in faith, trust, in throwing oneself to the unknown. Giving one’s heart, one’s wellbeing, into the trust of another, with the implicit hope that it won’t be mistreated. A rather scary prospect, for one who’s social interaction had been limited to paper and binding glue for as long as they wanted to remember. But the friend spoke of an alternative; or rather, a change to the formula. A way to structure the unpredictable. To, in every sense of the word, have a trial period with a prospective partner.
Moondancer never saw herself becoming a pony interested in speed dating. But when it had been explained as a formula, a way to contain the variability of romantic prospects into a set of parameters and variables… the appeal hadn’t exactly been lost on her. And it took weeks of debating, of decision, to decide if she wanted to go through with it… but she had. Nervously. Apprehensively. But she had, and even though the nerves never truly faded, and her heart rate never really slowed below a speed that could kindly be called tachycardic… she still felt like she was in control.
Because normal speed dating had a catch. Your time with your romantic prospects was limited. There was a set allotment of time to get to know each other, but at the end, the bell always rang, and you had to move on. For her… that was simply too little time. There was no way to probe, to see if a partner was just putting on a pleasant face… and though her previous relationships couldn’t exactly be considered romantic, she’d been burned before.
But the friend wasn’t talking about normal speed dating. She knew of a place with a twist, where you could choose who to keep talking to and who to drop, and in the most literal sense, it was called Tap Out. There was still a timer, a set allotment for a first impression. But when the bell rang, when it came time to move on, you could stay. Choose to spend the next period talking with that pony. Or the next. Or the next. You could spend as long or as little time with any given prospect as you wanted, but if you or your partner got uncomfortable, you could tap out, and for Moondancer, that was the insurance she needed. In theory. In practice…
The first pony she’d been paired with had tapped out within thirty seconds. He was a pegasus; sleek, toned, and clearly in the habit of working out, and it took less than a minute for him to decide he didn’t want the anxious bookworm. It had stung, but she was glad the encounter didn’t have to drag out beyond that. The second pony, a collectibles appraiser, had spent a full ten minute round in conversation with her, but they’d agreed to part ways mutually when the bell rang.
And for the third, she found herself looking in a mirror.
She’d been placed in an empty room after the second round, because there hadn’t been another participant free at that given moment. And for seven minutes, her only company had been the sky-blue walls, a wooden coffee table, and a second, empty seat. She contented herself with watching the seconds tick by and tapping a hoof nervously. When a partner had finally been ushered into her room, she’d been… silent. Worried. Another pegasus, this time a greyish, sage green, with a silver and gold mane. Her cyan eyes darted back and forth, quickly scanning the surroundings. For a moment, Moondancer had shrank back, unsure of what to do with somepony who was so clearly uncomfortable… but the pegasus had done the same. Shivered, too. And she didn’t know why, but… she stopped. Collected herself. And when she sat back up to her proper, full posture, her face was neutral.
They didn’t speak, for a moment. Simply looked the other up and down, searching for an opening, or perhaps a sign to leave. Neither budged.
Eventually, Moondancer cleared her throat softly. The small jump of the pegasus did not elude her gaze. “I’m… sorry,” she said sheepishly, “if I’ve made you uncomfortable.” It was a weak start. She knew that.
“You didn’t.” The reply came too quickly, and seemed… stilted. Like there was supposed to be something behind it, a bit of substance that just… wasn’t there. The mare blinked, and Moondancer noticed the motion looked… smooth. “I haven’t had the warmest reception.”
“... I understand,” she eventually replied. The words had reached her ears with a certain formality that shouldn’t have been present with the statement they carried. It gave her pause as she considered the proper response. “I’ve had some trouble putting my best self forward. Nopony’s stayed with me for more than a round yet.”
“You’re the only one who’s stayed more than ten seconds.” The statement should have alarmed Moondancer, but again, the formality was there. It was like the mare was expressing emotions as facts rather than things to be experienced. There was no anger, no frustration, not even a hint of sadness. And so, she felt unthreatened.
“I can’t imagine why,” she said softly, furrowing her brow.
The mare smirked. It was sudden, jerky, and unexpected. “I’m not me at the moment.”
Her breath hitched. “What?”
“This is…” the pegasus fumbled for words. It was as if she’d tripped over her own tongue, but Moondancer saw no movement in the muscles under her chin. “This is a front,” she decided decisively. “I tried to go here as me. Discussed it with the owners, the security, the employees. They all said as long as I didn’t cause trouble, I’d be okay. But I didn’t consider how the ponies would react.”
She blinked. “The ponies?” she carefully probed.
“Yes.”
“You say that like there’s some sort of distinction.” The words were careful, calculated… but not scared. Not confident, but there was no fear cloaked within.
Another blink, still too smooth. “There is.”
“Then what are you?”
The pegasus blinked once more. When her eyes were exposed again, they were still cyan, but… that was all they were. No pupils, no whites, just cyan. The lights above them reflecting off its corneas provided the only break in the smooth, blue surface, and for a moment, the breath left Moondancer’s body. Slowly, grey chitin overtook sage fur, hardened, darkened, and spread down the mare’s sides. By the time the change had reached the floor, the grey was near black, and spots on her legs began to wither. Perforate. Mane hairs turned to membranous fins, canines elongated and sharpened, and feathers turned to teal, transparent skin with translucent, spidery support structures.
“I,” the changeling declared emotionlessly, “am the perfect pony partner.”
And for a full minute, silence reigned.
Moondancer looked the creature up. Down. Watched as it breathed carefully, not through its mouth, but through the slits on its barrel, almost motionlessly. Counted each and every carve-out in its legs. Took careful note of both of the fangs, their exact proximity to her carotid, and the precise amount of time it would take to close the gap. Throughout the careful examination, the visual vivisection, the thing didn’t move once. Just simply observed as it waited for her next move.
Eventually, she spoke.
“Well, at least you’re honest.”
And as the bell rang, she didn’t even glance at the red button labeled Tap Out that lay in the middle of the table.
Author's Note
I'm a perfectionist, and it's killing my writing. This is, hopefully, gonna be an outlet where I can let some of that go.
“Would it be rude to ask why you’re here?”
“Very.” The changeling replied.
“Oh.” Moondancer took a sip of her tea. It’d been provided after the first round had finished, and the unicorn who’d brought it in had temporarily out-bugged the shapeshifter via the pure, unbridled effort of their eyes. She’d requested a ginger chai, and it had been delivered with a healthy dollop of cream, but the changeling had been content to just… sit. Watching. It almost seemed like its spine had been fused to a steel bar, the bar welded to a pivot, and the creature was just… okay with the resulting limited axis of movement. “I’m s-”
“I’ve been told,” it began, cutting her off, “that it’s generally polite to begin a conversation by asking for a name.” A flash of hot embarrassment suffused her fur, and she found her head ducking down, suddenly drawn to the fine details of the table between them, but before she could reply, it looked down too, chitin creased above its eyes. “I still have trouble with that part. It’s… foreign, to us.”
The apology thoroughly dead in her throat, Moondancer instead decided to clear it. “Foreign?” She received a nod, and pressed further. “Why?”
“We have no need for names.”
A giggle looked through the bars of its oral prison, noticed the guard was sleeping at his post, and made a break for it before she could fully realize what had happened. “So do you guys use numbers, or…”
“Of course not.” For a moment, the smallest of smirks flashed along its face, and it looked back up. “Numbers are for quantification purposes. The amount of nymphs that successfully emerged from their eggs. How many gallons of water the hive’s reserves have, and how many weeks it will take for them to run out. The number of scouts out on mission, or in any given city.” A pause. “Or region. Or nation, now that I think about it.” A quick head shake. “Ultimately, numbers run into the same issue that names do. The redundancy of a verbal distinguisher.”
Another sip of the chai. This time, she watched its head tilt subtly towards her cup. “The idea of not having a name seems strange to me, to be honest.”
“It should.” The changeling shifted its weight slightly. “You’re a pony.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
… it shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was that changeling eyes could widen. “Not in that way,” it quickly, and shakily, corrected, a sheepish grin jerkily spreading across its face. “I was only referring to your species… unfortunate cognitive separation.”
Moondancer canted her head to the side. “Cognitive sep-” A pause, tandem with a blink. “Oh. The hive mind.”
The shapeshifter shrugged. “As far as descriptors go, it’s workable.”
“You’re gonna have a hard time selling the unfortunate part of that sentence,” she said. “We ponies like doing our own thing.”
“And we don’t?” the changeling inquired.
The cup of chai, suspended in her field and moving towards her mouth, found its movement suspended as well. Her lips pursed, searched the air for words, found none, and closed. It watched closely, intently, and without a hint of recognizable emotion. “Some ponies would take the lack of names as evidence of such,” she eventually decided.
The creature laughed. It was a strange noise. The dual-tones present within its voice buzzed, shifted, and rolled over each other in a way that set Moondancer’s every hair on edge. The foam on top of her tea began to take on an interference pattern. Distantly, she noticed that the conversation in the rooms around them hitched. But she didn’t flinch. “Some ponies are wrong,” it chortled after a couple seconds. “You’re thinking of the… hive mind, as you put it, like a stream between two lakes. All the water in each could technically cross into the other, so in your mind, it’s less two lakes and a stream and more one lake with a very thin waist.” She snorted, and the creature shook its head (again, on that rigid, unmoving swivel). “It’s more like a badge.”
“A badge.”
“With a tracking enchantment,” it added, nodding sharply, and with no small amount of satisfaction. Like it believed its point had been made in the objective sense.
She raised her eyebrow again, to the point where it almost peeked over the rim of her glasses. “Like, a police badge…?”
The wince traveled across its face like a pane of glass cracking. “No, not a police badge.” Though its mouth remained open, no words followed for quite some time. Moondancer noticed its head tilting towards the tea again. “More of an employment badge. Or a conference badge. The ones that ponies make with their names, position within the organization, and their photo.”
“Oh.” She mulled the idea over for a second, glancing away. “That’s… strange.”
“What a funny way to say convenient.” When her eyes snapped back, the shapeshifter had the smallest of smiles on its face. It was many things; sharp coming to mind first, followed quickly by suspicious. The expression was wholly unfamiliar in the equestrian consciousness; smiles were for equine faces and avian imitations, while the most emotion they’d generally seen the shapeshifters conveying could be boiled down to ‘snarl.’
But it was impossible for Moondancer to ignore that it was undeniably warm.
“How so?”
The smile widened, and for just a moment, she could have sworn something was pulling at the corners of her own mouth. “If changelings held conferences, we’d need no badges. We can just look at each other and know. Who they are, their position in the swarm, their age, all of it.” Moondancer nodded. “And not just that, but I can sort of… feel other changelings around me. Imagine knowing somepony was behind you, and they had a wrench you needed, and instead of having to ask to borrow it, you could just stick your hoof behind you and they’d understand…” The creature sighed, which was a feat in and of itself, since it hadn’t reopened its mouth. “I apologize. It’s… hard, to put a biothaumic phenomenon and the feelings associated with it into words-”
“Like trying to explain how a magic field works to a pegasus,” she interrupted, and for a moment, the words on her tongue froze. “Or cloud manipulation to a unicorn.”
The changeling merely blinked. “Yes. Exactly.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said dismissively. “I get the general idea. And you’re right, it does sound convenient.”
“I didn’t understand why older changelings said it was until I came here,” it said, nodding along with each word in such a way that any roosters observing the scene would have felt a bit of fatherly pride. “It’s hard to call something convenient when it’s the only reality you’ve ever been exposed to, but… well, it’s obvious.” The shapeshifter emitted a noise, one which Moondancer would later identify as it clearing its throat. “We don’t use names, because to re-articulate something we already understand on an instinctual level verbally is to draw attention to it. To move to a place where it’s the only mode of communication…”
She took another sip of the tea, and duly noted the cup was roughly two-thirds of the way to becoming a figure of speech. “Must’ve been something of a culture shock.”
Another nod. “I spent a month as a half-deaf, INCREDIBLY defensive pony-ish.” That earned a full-blown laugh, and the shapeshifter jolted slightly in response before quickly re-settling. “I wasn’t used to having a sound be the identifying information I was supposed to respond to. So, lots of the time, I just didn’t respond to my name. And when the poor pony who was trying to talk to me finally got my attention, and I realized that the word they were repeating over and over was supposed to be me… it felt like I was being called out.”
Somewhere behind her eyes, distant memories of attention being pulled away from parchment began to bubble up to the surface. “I… think I understand,” she ventured softly.
“It was bad enough I had to create a new identity.”
Silence. “Actually, I take that back.”
“No harm done,” it responded, and the smile returned. “I’m fairly sure that the exoproprioception we feel is the main contributing factor to the equestrian perception that changelings are simply drones. To nail myself to your shoes-” the creature’s mouth snapped shut. “You just made a face.”
Moondancer shook her head a little. “Sorry. I haven’t heard anypon- anyone mangle that figure of speech that badly before.”
“What’s it supposed to be?” it asked innocently.
“‘Put myself in your shoes.’”
“Ah.” The changeling’s head ducked down towards the table, and she distantly wondered if it was possible for chitin to blush. “Apologies. To put myself in your shoes, as a creature without that connection…” It trailed off. “A group of changelings interacting among themselves will cut out a significant portion of the verbal communication you require, so a pony would see us stare at each other and then move. With coordination. Coordination that, for you, is impossible without speaking.” Another twisting laugh rose up from its chest. “I would assume we were a shared consciousness too.”
“Makes sense.” Between them, the cup of chai shed the last bit of heat that kept it steaming, and did so with a delightful little flourish on the ephemeral curl. They both watched it dissipate, and naturally, the focus shifted to the other’s eyes.
And for a moment, nothing needed to be said.
“Well!” Moondancer exclaimed after a moment, and did so with entirely too much force. “I don’t have that connection. And, in my mind, it would be a slight for me to keep thinking of you as ‘the changeling.’ So you need a name.” The creature nodded, so she continued. “What have you been going by in disguise?”
It blinked. “... to be quite honest, I haven’t had a disguise lately.” Pause. “At least, not a pony one.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” The confirmation was, once again, emotionless. Matter-of-fact.
“How does that work after the…” The forehoof that had automatically lifted to cover her mouth was quickly redirected towards gesturing around the room. “You know.”
“I do.” And for a moment, the changeling paused. Looked around for a second. For a brief moment, its horn lit up, and Moondancer’s heart jumped in her chest. The only indication the changeling noticed was another jerky wince. “Sorry. I needed to make sure the room wasn’t bugged. This information is somewhat… sensitive within the swarm. A lot of changelings’ safety relies on this fact staying private.”
The motes of dust twirling in the air took center stage for a good while. “... then why tell me?” Moondancer whispered.
The reply was instant. Calm. Confident. “Because you stayed.”
And for that, she had absolutely no words at all.
“And because it’s somewhat funny,” the creature continued, “that I spent multiple months disguised as a fire hydrant.”
Her laugh was sharp, sudden, and loud. It bounced around the room, left impressions on the walls, and eventually settled (somewhat painfully) back into her eardrums. The changeling’s ears slammed back as well, but the smile she’d seen twice before had returned with a sort of ear-to-ear gusto, and that was the only part of the creature’s expression that mattered. “A hydrant,” she eventually gasped. “How did nopony notice?”
“Oh, they did.” The changeling glanced towards the door. “Mostly because this was in the noble district, and suddenly, some very rich ponies were getting a lot of tickets for parking their chariots within three meters of essential city infrastructure.” As that prompted a second wave of laughter, it leaned back slightly. “You know who did notice? Instantly, universally, and without fail?”
“Y-yeah?” she forced out through the giggles.
“Dogs.”
And suddenly, all of the mirth was gone. “Oh no.”
A curt nod. “My opinion of your canine companions has been soiled in, quite literally, every sense of the word.”
“Yeeeeeeeeesh.” She glanced back at the cup of chai. “I had no idea you guys could turn into inanimate objects. That’s crazy.”
“I can count the number of ponies who do on my hooves.” And when that knocked the wind out of her, he reached a swiss-holed leg across the table. “It’s okay, I promise.” After a moment’s hesitation, she took it. “You’ve seen the reports that changelings that get discovered tend to vanish into thin air.” A quick nod. “We don’t vanish. We run, until we can break the line of sight between us and our pursuers, and then we choose something small nearby that wouldn’t be out of place and transform.” It giggled again, and Moondancer noted that she could feel the vibrations traveling down its leg to its hoof. “When I got my chance, there was nothing nearby. I was on the sidewalk in front of some noble’s immaculately groomed lawn, and transforming into a chariot would have been way too obvious, so I panicked and chose a hydrant. It worked, evidently, but ah, there were…”
“‘Consequences’ would be a gentle way to put it,” she interjected.
“Yeah,” it confirmed. “To be clear, asking about my previous disguise wasn’t a bad avenue towards a name. Some lonelings will take on the names of their object disguises. I have a friend named Teacup, for what I hope are obvious reasons.” And then, the changeling threw its head back a little. “Unfortunately, Fire Hydrant doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”
“No, it doesn’t.” And then Moondancer stopped. Canted her head to the side, rolled the syllables around in her mouth for a moment, and concentrated. Behind the thick frames of her glasses, her brow furrowed, and the changeling mirrored her cranial tilt. “But Hyde does.”
“Hyde?”
“Like in hydrant,” she clarified, and the creature nodded along, “but also because you’re a changeling. You hide.”
A forked tongue made a brief appearance through chitin-plated lips. “You wish to boil my entire identity down to a pun.”
“That’s good enough for a lot of parents,” she replied cautiously.
“I was gonna say city planners.” And then it was the changeling’s turn to contemplate. “Your name is…?”
“Oh!” Another blush suffused her cheeks. “I’m Moondancer. Sorry, I…” She swallowed, and an awkward grin spread across her lips. “It felt like we’d already gotten past that part.”
“I understand,” it said calmly, with an unnaturally smooth nod accentuating the statement. “Do you, perchance, dance on the moon?
Silence. “... I’m mostly working on advanced thaumaturgical theory.”
The changeling nodded again, but there was nothing smooth about that one. “Then at least Hyde is a better fit than yours.”
She blinked, but quickly shook her head. “Well then, I must say-” and this time, it was Moondancer’s turn to offer a hoof across the table, which was quickly taken- “it’s very nice to make your acquaintance, Hyde.”
“And likewise to you, Moondancer.”
Later, when she attempted to recall the scene before her… she would stumble. Trip over herself, contradict every detail she thought she knew, until eventually, she couldn’t even recall the color of the walls around her. The problem was both simple and perplexing; beyond the occasional vibrations that traveled up the legs of the table and sent ripples galavanting around under the chai’s foam, there really wasn’t that much going on. The room, ever-stoic in its bare mundanity, hadn’t changed beyond the sapients occupying the seats. There was nothing particularly interesting about the furniture’s wood grain, let alone craftsmanship. She was face-to-face with a perfect picture of banality.
And she was trying to describe something more.
In the moment, though, all she could do was stare.
“So, Hyde, is it still rude to ask why you’re here?”
And for a moment, its mouth opened in a slight o. “Would it be rude to answer ‘sampling the menu?’”
Author's Note
Yes, Hyde does use it/its pronouns.
