A Nurse in Disguise

6 whole weeks have passed, the trip was longer for her due to her being inexperienced with the journey and having poorly miscalculated the time it would take. Surprisingly the journey had very little in the way of trouble for Nephila, however she couldn't shake the feeling that something had been following her for several days now, stalking her from a distance, just out of sight. She knew that she was only an hours walk away from the equestrian border at this point as she had been following the trail that the infiltrators had made by marking the trees with their pheromones, often times inside said trees were messages stating the distance from the border and how much longer it would be, other times there was little aid packages inside often consisting of things such as equestrian currency, which resulted in her having quite a hefty sum of bits in her saddle bags. She had hoped she could make it to the border before whatever was stalking her had the chance to catch up to her, but she was horribly wrong. As after a while a loud roar was heard from the trees startling both her and countless birds resting amongst the trees, the roar came from behind her then immediately after a series of loud thumping caused by the large paws of whatever was stalking her echoed loudly across the forest, the ground also shook with each paw that struck the ground. The combination of these sounds caused the exhausted Nephila to go into a full gallop from sheer terror. She didn't know what it was that was making those sounds, but it scared her half to death. So she decided to keep running as she heard the sounds of branches and twigs snapping behind her. The sounds of whatever beast that chased after her was growing louder with each passing second. As she ran she decided to break a major rule when running from something and turned to look behind her, behind her was some kind of wooden beast covered in scorch marks from magical burns and had arrows and bolts jutting out of its wooden hide, it also was covered in moss and what she could only assume was some kind of dried sap, the scariest thing she noticed was around it's wooden maw was old dried blood from the creatures former prey, she did not want to end up like them. So she turned her attention back to what was in front of her and screamed and cried out for help, hoping that someone would come and save her. She knew it was a useless endeavor to even try because what Pony or Changeling in their right mind would be this far from the border! However this thought process was rudely interrupted with the sound of the beast roaring again as it slammed into a nearby tree hard enough to force the tree it struck to collapse under the beasts weight, the beast got back up and charged again at Nephila before what Nephila saw as a green magical beam slammed into it again this time taking it down to the ground as several ponies rushed in from the treeline, they were clad in some kind of armor she has never seen before as they began attacking this creature with magic, crossbows, and spears, most of which were clearly just pissing the creature off. That didn’t change until a unicorn mare came from the treeline slamming some kind of spell into the creature that at first looked like it did nothing, but slightly singed the wooden hide of the beast. That was the case until suddenly the creature violently exploded into fragments of wood and dust. The spell that was casted caused the creature to self-destruct in a rather violent manner, that same unicorn mare approached Nephila and said, "What the buck are you doing all the way out here! That thing could have killed you! Don't you civilians know that you can't be traveling in these woods!"

Nephila at first was stunned at the fact she watched the creature oh so violently meet its demise before being snapped back to reality when this soldier of some kind began yelling at her. It was then she noticed the guard, she wore beautiful silver armor with golden accents and some gems embedded in the chest piece, the armor was something akin to proper combat armor that a medieval knight would wear, it wasn’t what she expected to be worn by the soldiers of Equestria. Nephila only knew of the guards in canterlot with their ceremonial gear as the few infiltrators she raised had told her of their journey’s in the Equestrian capital. Her helmet was off and Nephila could see what she could only assume was a rather beautiful mare by Pony standards, she had a nice beige colored coat with a silky mane matching her armor, it was a beautiful golden color with highlights of silver and white. The highlights showing through the golden mane as if to show how the stress of the job had aged her slightly. Nephila shook her head and said to the mare in front of her,"W-Wha? O-Oh! S-Sorry Ma'am I'm just a foreigner from out west! I was traveling through these woods as I was told that this was the fastest way to get to Equestria!" Nephila said, speaking the introduction she had rehearsed a hundred times during her travels in the case such a situation occurred.

"A foreigner… We don't usually get ponies from out west, heck I don't think we have ever gotten a foreigner from out west! We didn't even know there were ponies that lived out there! Regardless, we need you to come with us back to the border, we need to get you out of these woods before something else tries to kill you."

Nephila nodded to the guard in front of her as the guard whistled and slammed her spear into the ground once which grabbed the attention of all the other guards who immediately rushed over to her, getting in some form of formation around Nephila as they began walking her back to the border outpost they came from. Nephila looked over the guards and asked, "Why were you all the way out here? I didn't think anyPony would be patrolling so far from the border."

The guard smirked and replied saying, "Usually we don't, but we have been hunting that timberwolf for a while as it attacked one of the last two Pony patrols we sent out into the woods outside our outpost, it ate one of my guards so I personally gathered a hunting party to take the damned beast down. Thanks to your screaming we were able to finally find it and kill it for good."

"O-Oh… Well Um… What's your name?" Nephila asked the guard a bit nervously. The guard kindly smiled and said, "Gleaming Arrow at your service miss… what was your name?" Nephila blushed a bit and said, "Oh sorry! Um my name is Nephila! I was a nurse where I came from, I hoped to travel and live in Equestria and live a safe and happy life." She had said with an innocent smile as she walked with the guards. The guards had been looking Nephila over as they walked and had kept up with some rather hushed discussions about her and the concept of there being civilized ponies out to the the wastes in the west, Nephila decided it wasn’t a bad idea to warn the ponies of the Changeling empire forming out there as well and said, “Well Gleaming I am leaving because my town was destroyed by a Changeling empire out there, it formed from dozens of hives being conquered.”

“Changeling? What the buck is a Changeling?” One of the guards to her left asked and Gleaming gave Nephila a confused look as she also commented saying, “That’s a good question, we’ve never heard of a Changeling before, what is it?” This caused Nephila to look shocked, Changelings have been coming and going to Equestria for centuries and no one here has heard of them!? She gulped and said, “A Changeling is an insectoid creature that feasts on love, they can eat meat as well if they need to, but they don’t have the same digestive system a Pony does and harvest emotions mostly. The empire that’s from where I came from will likely come out to Equestria when they become strong enough, I recommend you shore up defenses in case that happens. Oh also Changelings can shape shift to look like any creature or object.” She said the last bit with a noticeable shiver to try and get the point across that Changelings creeped her out, all around her she could feel the emotions of worry, sympathy, and anxiety, the emotions made her sick as two of those emotions were borderline toxic for her kind.

The rest of the trip towards the border outpost was silent, the ponies were stuck thinking about everything she told them, Gleaming for example knew she had one hell of a report to file to her higher ups back in Canterlot, she just didn’t know if those pompous nobles would actually give a damn about such a threat. Slowly they arrived at the outpost when the sun was beginning to set, the tall gates to what was essentially a small wooden fort opened up with each of the guards entering the safety of the walls with an audible sigh as if a weight was lifted off their backs. Nephila could feel the anxiety slowly fade, rapidly being replaced with contentment and comfort as they made their way inside. Nephila looked around at the fort around her, it was filled with dozens of large wooden structures that could hold the entire garrison if needed, there were buildings she could only assume were a barracks, an armory, and some sort of building meant for food as she could smell all sorts of delicious meals emanating from the building, the faint smell alone making her mouth water. She would look around further and notice every guard in the outpost was equipped similarly to Gleaming, they all wore the same armor without the golden accents and were either resting or patrolling the tall wooden walls of the outpost, there was a few sitting around a large fire in the center of the fort, there was a few cleaning their weapons as they chatted about something she couldn’t hear. The guards had all sorts of weapons, the most common she saw was a spear that she instantly recognized due to the gem on the spear tip that was capable of firing a concentrated blast of magic at whoever the user aimed it at, something similar that her own hivemates used to use to defend their sacred home, she smiled for a moment remembering some of the hivemates of her she raised. The moment she thought of that her mind began to wander, she thought of how happy they were in their positions, the proud warriors, the gentle nursery drones, the loyal tunnelers, the cunning infiltrators, the stories they all told her on a day to day basis, oh how she was going to miss the times they’d tell her of their adventures. To the many nymphs Nephila was like a second mother for them, and she always viewed them the same way, she treated the many young as if she spawned them herself.

“Alright miss, let's get you a warm meal.” The Earth Pony guard stated interrupting her thoughts, thus drawing her attention to the stallion infront of her. Nephilia nodded as she proceeded to follow him to a decently large wooden structure inside the fort that was the mess hall. Once she made it inside she could feel her hunger set in as she realized just how hungry she got without food for weeks, she ran out of her bread rations and the love crystals weeks ago. She walked over to a long self serve mess line that had many different forms of hay based meals and a couple fish based meat products reserved for the Pegasi in the fort, two of which were in the mess hall at the time and were looking at her with curiosity and amusement as she had grabbed one of their dishes. It was something akin to fish sticks and some hay fries. She promptly walked over to a table and sat there as her mouth watered at the sight of the fish sticks, she gave it a few sniffs and picked a piece up with a fork held with her magic. She slowly moved the fish stick to her muzzle and took a bite, her eyes shooting open wide causing the Pegasi to laugh thinking she was shocked it was meat, but were themselves shocked to see her let out a content sigh as she began eating more of the fish. The Pegasi had never seen a unicorn willingly eat meat, especially a meal that was so widely known to be a Pegasus only meal since they were the only one of the three tribes to eat fish. They just sat there and watched her in awe as she ate her fishsticks then went back for more, her escort was just as shocked as the Pegasi, but in a manner where he was thoroughly disgusted with it. “How can you eat that?” the Earth Pony asked and Nephila without missing a beat said, “Fishing village, it was easier to catch fish than grow crops. Fish is so delicious, this breading is a wonderful combination with it too, I wonder, do you happen to have any custard to go with it?” She immediately took another bite when she was done talking and melted all over again from the flavor, she hasn’t tasted physical food this good ever in her life, it was simply divine!

After a little while she finished her dinner after going back several more times making sure she had enough food in her system to last her the rest of the journey, she was promptly escorted by a thoroughly confused and disgusted Earth Pony to the barracks where she took the time to set up her rack and fall asleep in it making sure to keep her disguise spell running. Which was something she had been practicing with during the whole journey to the border by keeping her disguise up for entire days and nights, thankfully it caused a very low magic drain due to how simple the disguise was so she could theoretically keep it up for weeks or months at a time. Regardless, she slowly drifted into a deep sleep.