The Twin Queens

Our parents never showed up.

It had been several days since Nephila and I hatched from our eggs, and we hadn’t seen a single person enter our storage room.

It wasn’t like we missed each other either. I made sure to stay put and never even went outside. Nephila just followed me around like a puppy and never went anywhere on her own, so it was easy to get her to stay inside the room too.

Meaning if anyone cared to come get us, we would’ve been waiting for them. But nobody came.

Those thoughts and other vague feelings of frustration and indignation at the situation I was in floated around in my half-awake mind as I blinked my eyes open. It was quite difficult to tell the time in our room due to the lack of windows, but I could tell it was morning because of the bright light leaking through the crack at the bottom of the old wooden door.

I felt a slight shift against my chest, and then a warm breath rolled over the chitin in the crook of my neck. I gently rubbed my chin against the top of Nephila’s head to nuzzle her.

When it was time to go to sleep on the night of our hatching, Nephila became anxious again. I prepared some basic bedding for both of us by folding up some clean curtains to use as pillows and blankets, but she kind of panicked when I placed her bedding beside mine and showed her what it was for. After that, she insisted on dragging her sheets to the other end of the room and sleeping as far away from me as possible.

I figured that the anxiety was a lingering symptom of her fear of me. She must have felt especially vulnerable at the prospect of sleeping near me. So I decided I’d leave her be and let her do what she needed to do to feel safe.

On the second night, I abided by her preferences and prepared our beddings on the opposite sides of the room from each other. As I was settling down, however, I was surprised to see her walk over to my side. I was shocked when, without any warning, she got under my sheets beside me and grabbed me with her legs to cuddle up to me.

I tried to coax her into using her own bedding if she wanted to sleep nearby, or at least to give me some personal space. But she wasn’t having it, and she quickly fell asleep while latched on to me.

From that second night onward, Nephila refused to fall asleep unless she was sharing the bed with me and snuggling me, despite my attempts to convince her otherwise. She was very stubborn. So by this point, I had given up on fighting it.

I nuzzled the top of her head again.

"Nephy, it’s morning," I said softly.

"Mmmh," she hummed sleepily.

I was amazed to learn that Nephila didn’t really have the lack of discipline commonly found in children. She wouldn’t make excuses to try to sleep in longer than she should and wouldn’t avoid doing things she didn’t want to do. I knew I wouldn’t have to tell her to wake up again, so I simply lay there and continued to slowly nuzzle her while I waited for her brain to boot up.

A few moments later, she pulled her face back to look into my eyes.

"Hi Thybe," Nephila said, giving off a feeling of simple happiness. "Good sleep?"

I couldn’t resist smiling at how cute she was.

Of course, I hadn’t wasted the days waiting for our parents by doing nothing. I was teaching Nephila how to speak and read and write. Her rate of progress was still utterly mind-blowing to me. In just a few days, she’d reached approximately the ability of a two- to three-year-old human toddler.

"Good enough," I replied. "How about you, Nephy?"

Nephila yawned. I scrunched my muzzle as I got a view of her wide open mouth and her morning breath.

"Good," she said when she was done.

"That’s good. We have a lot to do today."

The hunger pains in my stomach were getting bad. It seemed that changelings could go for many days without eating or drinking as long as they had enough love energy stored in their bodies, but my love was running out. I wasn’t too worried about Nephila yet because I gave her the larger share of the love I originally had, but I was sure she was feeling some hunger pain too.

By now it was obvious to me that we really had been abandoned by our parents. I had been holding on to a slim hope that wasn’t the case, but the hope was all but gone by this point. Waiting any longer for someone who would never show up would only lead to us slowly starving to death in this room. I decided it was time to take responsibility and go outside to find some way to get more love.

And probably some water, too. I was starting to feel thirsty after days of not drinking anything. I definitely would’ve died of dehydration if I let myself go so long without a drink as a human, so I was glad to see how resilient changeling biology was.

Theoretically, it should’ve been easy to get what we needed. If I recalled correctly, the changeling kingdom was friendly with Equestria at the end of the show. All Nephila and I would need to do was ask a random pony guard for help, and they’d probably get in contact with the changeling kingdom for us and send us over to be raised as orphans or whatever.

Even if our foster parents were bad, I could still take care of us myself. The most important thing was being provided with food until I managed to get on my feet.

I noticed Nephila had gotten to her hooves while I was thinking. She reached down to grab my foreleg with her own and started pulling me.

"Come! Push-ups!" she said excitedly.

I chuckled as I turned over to get my hooves under me. "Alright, hold your horses."

I taught her the importance of doing exercise to keep in shape, and I suggested a routine of doing push-ups in the mornings to build upper body strength. Nephila took the concept and somehow turned it into a competition, where we each did push-ups at the same time and the one who dropped first lost. She became obsessed with trying to beat me, but she never managed to so far.

Nephila tilted her head as I got up.

"Horses?" she asked.

"Uh…" I thought about how to describe horses in this world. "Horses are like big… animal… people."

"Big animal people?" Nephila repeated, her emotions flowing with confusion.

"Yup," I said, nodding confidently.

Nephila stared at me for a few moments, and then she stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at me.

I never should’ve shown her how to do a raspberry.

She grabbed my forehoof again and started pulling me away from our sleeping spot. "Push-ups!"

"Yes, yes," I said, letting myself be pulled along. "We’ll do push-ups."

Nephila stopped a few steps away from our bedding before letting my hoof go and turning to face me. She spread her legs apart and bent her front knees slightly.

"Ready?" she asked eagerly.

I copied her position, facing her head-on.

"Ready," I said. "Oh, and make sure you count out loud. Practice your numbers."

Nephila scrunched her muzzle in displeasure, but nodded anyway.

She bent her front legs to lower herself to the ground, and I followed her. Then she pushed herself back up, and I came up with her.

"One," she said, and I nodded.

Our little game continued like that for a short while. I was proud to see that she didn’t make any mistakes with her counting, and both of us were steadily improving with the amount of push-ups we could do before collapsing. When we began we could barely do five, but we had gradually progressed into the low twenties.

The gap between us was also closing. Before, I usually won by six or seven push-ups, but this morning I only won by three. Maybe Nephila would finally beat me someday very soon. I was looking forward to it.

Afterwards, we both rested on our stomachs while our forelegs burned, panting away as we cooled down and waited to regain our energy.

"Good job, Nephy," I told her between breaths. "I’m proud of you."

I scooted closer to nuzzle against Nephila’s warm cheek. She closed her eyes and hummed at the touch. I felt her take joy in the praise I gave her through our emotional link.

I wanted to get a move on with finding a nearby pony guard to get help from, but I supposed that if the guards were to take us in for questioning, and then maybe keep us in their guard facilities for a few days while they searched for our parents, and then finally sent us off to the changeling kingdom, it’d be a while before Nephila would get the opportunity to practice some of her skills again.

So I wanted her to practice her weakest skill for at least an hour before we headed out.

"Nephy," I said.

She hummed in response.

"Use your words, Nephy," I admonished.

I felt air blow against the side of my face as Nephila huffed.

But she relented. "Yes, Thybe?"

"Let’s practice your spelling for a while," I said.

She let her head suddenly drop to rest on her forelegs.

"Nephila?" I asked, a little concerned as I looked at her.

"Annoying," she murmured.

Despite searching the storeroom relatively thoroughly, I never managed to find anything that could’ve been useful for writing. No paper, pens, quills, ink, chalk, or what have you. I knew it was important to teach Nephila how to write, though, so I didn’t want to give up on it.

At first, I thought it would be fine if I taught Nephila the alphabet and then had her repeat the correct order of letters for a word back to me using her voice. But I quickly realized that wouldn’t be good enough. She needed to learn the shape of the letters and how to form them, not just memorize a sequence of sounds.

I ended up improvising with a bad but workable solution. Even though we had no writing supplies, what we had in abundance was busted furniture. I went around the room collecting various wooden legs that had broken off of tables and chairs. I then taught Nephila how to write by using the legs like wooden blocks or Lego pieces, arranging them together on the floor to form letters and words.

It was extremely clunky and slow to work with, so I didn’t blame Nephila for being annoyed with having to use the blocks. But it was better than nothing.

I leaned down and rubbed the top of Nephila’s mane with my nose.

"I know," I said. "But it’s important to learn."

She seemed to get over her annoyance rather quickly, as she suddenly got up from her prone position while I was still nuzzling her head, knocking my chin back. She turned and began walking to where we kept the stack of furniture legs without waiting for me.

I swiftly got to my hooves to follow her, and ran for a few steps to catch up to her.

"Nephila," I chided as we walked.

"Yes?" she replied.

"What you just did was rude," I said.

Nephila tilted her head to the side as she looked at me.

"You hit my chin with your head when you got up. Would you like it if I hit you in your chin?"

She blinked.

"No," she replied.

"Then don’t hit other people," I told her. "I know it was an accident, but you have to be careful and pay attention to where other people are. Okay?"

Nephila pressed her lips into a line and was silent for a moment, but then she nodded. "Okay."

Even though Nephila was ridiculously mature for her age, I’d observed over these past few days that sometimes she still had an innocent carelessness common in some children. The kind where kids would accidentally hurt other people because they didn’t understand the consequences of their actions. I was hoping that by pointing it out to her when it happened, she would quickly learn to be more attentive.

We arrived at the stack of wooden legs, and I helped Nephila to quickly unstack them and spread them on the floor for easy access.

"Alright Nephila," I said when we were done. "Write ‘cat.’"

Nephila squinted her eyes in thought as she looked down at the wooden legs for a few moments. Then she began to move the legs around with her forehooves to form the shapes of the letters.

I watched her for a bit at the beginning to make sure she understood the word I gave her, and when I was satisfied, I stepped away to let her do her thing without any interruption.

I had adopted the routine of practicing my own skills while Nephila was busy practicing hers. I knew changelings could shape-shift, and the thought of doing something like that was fascinating to me, a human who had only experienced one type of body my entire life. I fantasized about what it would be like to take the forms of various species, from griffons to seaponies to dragons. I wondered if it would be possible to even take the form of my old human self.

But I hadn’t seen Nephila shape-shift even once since we hatched, and I had no idea where to even begin with trying to do it myself. It was as if a random person with no experience in aviation at all was sat down in the cockpit of an A320 and told to start the plane and take off with no instruction. They would be utterly clueless, which was how I felt with anything involving magic.

I still had no idea how my emotional link with Nephila worked, or if there was even a way for me to turn it off.

So I figured I would wait for Nephila to figure out how to shape-shift on her own, and then ask her to teach me. I felt like my human preconceptions about magic were hindering my attempts to learn it. As a natural-born changeling, Nephila wouldn’t have any of those mental blockers and should’ve been able to learn shape-shifting instinctively. At least, I hoped so.

With that logic, I had put learning shape-shifting on the back burner.

Instead, I dove into the next changeling skill with great enthusiasm: learning flight. Nephila had demonstrated her buzzing wings a couple of times at my request. Although she didn’t provide any guidance, I observed her movements carefully as I strove to emulate them.

I moved the muscles at the base of my wings in order to raise them up. It was a strange feeling, since I was moving limbs that had no equivalents on the human body. My instincts were telling me that these limbs did not exist, so it was very difficult to get them to do anything. But after days of practice, I felt like I was slowly getting the hang of the basics.

With my wings raised, I closed my eyes and concentrated on vibrating the membranes quickly like Nephila had shown me. I vibrated them far too slowly and had a false start, but I quickly corrected and got them moving rapidly a couple of seconds later.

I felt a brief satisfaction at having reached this stage relatively easily. It had taken me entire days to get my wings buzzing this fast when I first started out, but I was finally starting to get decent at it.

If I visualized my wings as a light aircraft’s piston engine, buzzing them as I was would be the engine’s ‘idling’ state. The engine was running and the propeller was spinning, but it was throttled all the way back and not doing any useful work yet.

I took a deep breath to prepare myself for the hard part, and then mentally pushed the throttle forward. As I poured more energy into my wings’ muscle groups, the volume of the buzzing increased as the wings moved faster, and I felt my hooves come away from the ground as I slowly hovered upwards.

My body accidentally tilted to the right, since it was difficult to keep my wings flapping together in perfect balance. As a consequence, I began flying in that direction. I wanted to panic at the uncontrolled movement, but I knew that panicking would likely lead to me tilting at an even greater angle and end with me crashing into the floor, so I suppressed my emotions and focused on correcting the mistake.

I managed to right myself by buzzing my right wing faster than my left, generating more lift on that side. I sighed in relief as I finally stopped moving sideways and hovered steadily in place.

The controls of my natural flight were more similar to that of a helicopter than to a fixed-wing aircraft. Tilting my body in a certain direction made me accelerate in that direction, similar to how a helicopter pilot tilted the rotor blades in one direction to move in that direction. Of course, there were some major differences from piloting a helicopter. For example, my wings could flap at different rates to manipulate the airflow and the amount of lift generated on each side independently, which was not possible on a helicopter.

Also, I had fatigue to contend with. Flapping my wings so fast and hard was exhausting work. I figured my flight time would increase as my wing muscles grew stronger from exercise, but at the moment I was limited to flying for only a few minutes before I got too tired.

All this meant that I didn’t dare go any higher than a few feet off the ground until I could fly for much longer and with much more stability.

Still, I was flying in my own natural body without the use of any machines! Just the act of hovering in place a little bit off the ground filled me with such joy and excitement and anticipation of what I would be able to do in the sky in the future. I would stay floating there forever if I could.

"Thybe!" I heard Nephila’s voice call, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"Coming!" I called back.

But before I set myself down, I had an idea. I wanted to fly to her instead of walking. Perhaps a bit reckless, since I barely had control over the basics, but the worst that could happen would be getting a few bruises from crashing into the furniture or the ground. And it would be good practice.

I carefully moved my wings to tilt myself forwards ever so slightly. I didn’t want to go zooming off wildly, so I kept my pitch angle very shallow. I began to move forward at a nice and sedate pace, and I concentrated on keeping my speed steady without becoming unbalanced or allowing any unwanted turns.

I beamed at Nephila when I reached her, feeling very proud of myself for my accomplishment. This was the first time I’d actually travelled anywhere while hovering. Nephila stared up at me, blinking. I could sense her mild confusion.

"Hi Nephy," I said excitedly. "I flew here."

Nephila tilted her head cutely.

"Okay," she said.

I continued to grin at her.

I felt her push her confusion out of her mind as she pointed her forehoof to the floor at her side. I brought my attention to the furniture legs.

"I finished," Nephila said.

On the floor beside her, the wooden legs did indeed spell out ‘cat’ in crude blocky letters. Particularly noteworthy was the fact she remembered that the letter ‘c’ was used instead of the letter ‘k’. She had made that mistake a few times before, but I was glad to see that she recalled my corrections.

I carefully hovered closer with my wings, and I used one of my forehooves to softly rub the top of Nephila’s head. I made sure to send her my feelings of praise for her success through our emotional link.

"You got it right. Good job," I said.

Nephila gave me a slight smile in return.

I remained with her as I had her do a few more short words. I had to stop flying halfway through because I finally reached my limit, which was disappointing, but I didn’t let that distract me from the lesson. Nephila made a couple of minor mistakes that I pointed out and which she readily corrected, but otherwise I felt like she was doing great at spelling simple words.

I wanted to move her on to slightly more complex words, but I held off. I would resume my lessons with her after we were settled down again in the changeling kingdom or wherever the ponies decided to house us. Plus, getting access to pens and paper would make the whole process infinitely less annoying, which I thought was worth waiting for.

"Alright Nephila," I said after we had finished my lesson and cleaned up the furniture legs. "We’re going to leave this place now, so go and grab anything you want to keep."

Of course, we didn’t exactly have any personal possessions. I didn’t have anything I wanted to bring with me, and I expected the same was true for Nephila. Still, I made sure to inform her just in case.

"Leave here?" Nephila asked, frowning. Her emotions became worried. "You sure? Safe here."

I understood how it must have felt scary to leave the room for Nephila, especially since it was all she knew. But there was nothing for us here anymore.

"There’s no love here, Nephy," I told her. "We need to leave to get more love, or we’ll starve. Understand?"

Nephila furrowed her brow and stared down at the ground. A moment later, she looked into my eyes again.

"Get love, then come back," she said. "Safe here."

"Hey." I stepped closer to her to cup her cheek with my forehoof. "You won’t be alone. I’ll be at your side, okay? There’s no reason to be afraid. We can find somewhere better to live that’ll also be safe. Alright?"

Nephila’s emotions were rather agitated. I understood how she felt, but we couldn’t continue living in a half-rotted storeroom like a couple of vagrants forever. We needed to move on and take the next steps in our lives.

"Trust me. We’ll be safe," I said. I slowly stroked her cheek with my hoof.

She dropped her eyes to the floor again and pressed her lips together.

"Mmh. Don’t know. Safe here," Nephila muttered in a low voice.

I was surprised at the amount of resistance Nephila was showing. Usually, she went along with whatever I said and did whatever I asked of her. I was actually a little afraid of her becoming a doormat, and I had planned to give her lessons on how to be more assertive in the future. It was somewhat relieving to finally see her stand up for herself, but I was left wishing she would’ve picked something more trivial to argue about.

I tried my best to project feelings of confidence and safety at her through our link. If I could make her understand that I had a plan and I knew what I was doing, and that I’d take care of her, I was certain she’d go along with me.

Nephila looked into my eyes again, frowning.

"Don’t know what to do," she murmured. "Dumb… Thysbe."

I blinked. That was the first time she had ever pronounced my name properly. I was so surprised I completely ignored the part where she called me dumb.

Nephila lifted her forehoof and grabbed my own, which had still been resting on her cheek. She pulled it away from her face and held it in front of her, and then she placed the bottom of her hoof on mine so our frogs were touching.

I was entirely baffled by what she was doing. Nephila wasn’t usually one to initiate any contact, preferring to stay still while she received my affections instead. But I let her do as she wanted and didn’t move. She seemed to stare at our hooves clasped together with a vacant gaze.

After a few moments, I felt a sudden mirth mixed with disbelief in her emotions, and she chuckled out loud. I had no idea what she found funny, but she met my eyes with her own once again.

"I guess… I follow." Nephila gave a lopsided smile, but her emotions were filled with anxieties.

I frowned. Was she seriously considering not following me?

"I’ll keep you safe," I reiterated, hoping to reassure her.

She simply hummed.

I nudged the wooden door open with my muzzle.

The bright sunlight shone into my eyes painfully. I had been living in near-total darkness since I hatched, and my eyes had adjusted to that environment. I felt tears well up and run down my cheeks as I scrunched my stinging eyes shut, waiting for them to adjust to their first exposure to such intense light.

The pain slowly waned, and I was able to blink my eyes open for longer and longer periods of time. After a couple of minutes, I was able to keep them open continuously, and I rubbed the remaining tears away with the tip of my hoof. The sun hung high in the clear blue sky, and I averted my eyes from looking anywhere near it.

I turned to look behind me. Nephila was there, also rubbing at her eyes with her forehooves.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yes." She nodded.

I nodded in return, and then turned my attention to the outside.

On the first night before we went to sleep, I had cracked the door open to take a quick peek at our surroundings to make sure we weren’t in any immediate danger from the exterior environment. Satisfied at our relative safety, I then closed the door and never came out again.

Which was to say that the view before me wasn’t entirely new, but it was different seeing it in the night compared to the day.

Our storage shed was nestled in a small and yellowing grassy patch beside a brick wall. The wall was actually part of a large building. I looked up and counted six stories. There were small windows placed at regular intervals within the brick, sort of similar in style to old New York tenement buildings.

The building didn’t look new, but it also didn’t look like it was in disrepair. If anything, it looked well-maintained for its age.

The wall of the building spread far to our left, but to the right, it ended quickly. A cobblestone alleyway cut through the grass and between the tenement building closest to us and the next one, which seemed to be an identical copy with a similar grass yard, sans storage shed.

I took a few steps out of the doorway to get a better view around me. As I suspected, we were surrounded by these multi-story residential buildings on all sides, and we seemed to be located in some kind of shared courtyard. If the state of the lawn and our shed was any indication, it was a courtyard that saw almost zero traffic or maintenance.

The environment had me believe that we were located in a big city—or at least very close to one, in its suburbs. I wasn’t sure if it was a pony city, but I was sure I’d find out as soon as I got a glimpse of the locals.

I turned to Nephila.

"Alright, stay close to me," I instructed.

She nodded.

I started walking down the nearby alleyway that led out of the courtyard, with Nephila’s hooves steadily clopping against the cobblestone right behind me. There were the typical trash cans set along the walls one would expect to find in an alley, but there were no spillages or messes anywhere. I was impressed by the cleanliness.

On the way, I spotted a small mirror lying on top of the trash in one of the bins. I turned towards the bin with the mirror and quickly made my way to it before picking it up with a hoof. I heard Nephila’s hoofsteps pause in hesitation behind me for a moment before she came to join me.

I looked at my own face for the first time.

When I first hatched, I thought I was in the body of just a regular changeling drone. It didn’t take me long to notice things that contradicted that assumption, however. The fact that I had a mane was a big clue, as was the fact that my abdomen was made out of some soft material instead of chitin. I also noticed that my body’s general shape was very similar to Nephila’s.

So seeing my green slitted eyes and small fangs in the mirror wasn’t a surprise to me. It was more like a final confirmation of something I already knew. I was a young changeling queen, just like Nephila.

I had also checked other parts of my body over these past few days—it would’ve been difficult not to notice—and I could confirm that I was indeed female. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I hadn’t given it any serious thought, and I had no intention of starting now.

Nephila was leaning over my shoulder to get a view of the mirror, so I moved to hold it up in front of her to allow her to get a good look at herself.

"What do you think?" I asked. "Very cute, right?"

Nephila tore her gaze away from her reflection to stare at me with a flat look. She remained silent, but I felt a splash of exasperation in her emotions.

I smiled at her in return.

"Well, whatever," I said, throwing the mirror back into the trash bin. "Let’s continue on."

I began walking down the alley again, and this time Nephila stuck to my side instead of following behind. I had to admit I felt much more companionable with her walking beside me. I’d have to encourage her to do so more often.

It took us no time at all to reach the end of the alley, and I gazed out onto the main street. My heart swelled with relief when I saw the many ponies walking to and fro, pulling carts and going about their day. These people would be friendly and helpful. I’d just have to ask a random passerby for directions to a guard station, and then we’d be alright.

I took a step towards the open street, but I felt a tug on my hind leg that brought me to a halt. I craned my head back to see Nephila holding onto the top of one of my legs with a forehoof. I met her eyes questioningly.

"Stop," she said.

I blinked, confused.

"Stop walking there?" I asked, pointing to the street.

Nephila nodded.

"Why?" I asked.

"Danger," Nephila said.

I took another look around the area, searching for anything that could be dangerous. But I couldn’t find anything.

"Danger where?" I asked, glancing back to Nephila.

She pointed a hoof at a nearby group of ponies.

I sighed, glad that she was concerned about something that wasn’t an issue. She had me worried for a moment.

"Don’t worry," I said. "Ponies are friendly. They’re not dangerous. Watch."

I made to walk out onto the street again, but Nephila gave my leg a more forceful tug. She hadn’t let go.

"Stop," she said firmly.

I turned to her, trying to think of a way to calm her down.

"Hey, relax," I said. "Ponies are nice. They’ll help us. Just take a deep breath, okay?"

I brought my forehoof up to pat Nephila on the head, but she slapped my hoof away with her foreleg. I was frozen with shock.

"No, listen!" she practically growled with a stomp of her hoof. Her emotions were a surge of frustration and anger. "Danger!"

I certainly hadn’t expected that kind of behavior from the meek little Nephila. Was she acting like this because her changeling instincts were telling her to avoid exposing herself? Those instincts would probably be correct at any other time, but changelings and ponies were no longer enemies. She didn’t know that, and trying to explain the political situation—and why I knew such things—to her would take way too long. It would be easier for her to see that she had nothing to fear if I just walked up to some ponies and talked to them normally.

"Look, just hide here around the corner and watch me," I told her. "Everything will be fine. You’ll see."

Nephila bent her front legs to crouch down, and then she hissed at me. Actually hissed! I stared at her wide-eyed.

Then she lunged at me. I was too stupefied to do anything, and she crashed into my chest with a tackle. Luckily I managed to keep my balance and remain upright thanks to my stable four-legged stance, and her attempts to grapple me to the ground were largely ineffective.

"Dumb Thysbe!" Nephila snarled with her forelegs hooked around my neck. "Listen to me!"

I could hardly believe what she was doing, but I recovered from my shock enough to use my forehooves to push her off of me. She fell onto her side on the cobblestones with a grunt. I winced and felt bad, but really, it was her own fault. I would have to give her a stern talking-to later about not throwing tantrums when people didn’t do what she wanted.

For the moment, it’d be best if I made haste towards the ponies before she could try to stop me again. I would force her to see that her ridiculous overreaction was wrong.

I turned around and quickly walked out of the alleyway. When I was out in the open, I knew there was nothing Nephila could do to stop me anymore. I heard her give a shout of frustration from behind me, but I ignored her.

I spotted a couple of ponies—a mare and a stallion—walking side-by-side down the street close by. I speed-walked to catch up and came up alongside them. They seemed too absorbed in their hushed conversation to notice me, so I decided to grab their attention.

"Hello there," I said cheerily. "Sorry to bother you, but I’m lost. Can you tell me how to get to the nearest guard station?"

The mare’s eyes widened when she looked over at me, and she screamed in fright. I stumbled back at the reaction. The mare started yelling something in an alien language I had never heard before, and both she and the stallion with her took off galloping while continuing to shout.

The screams spread through the crowd on the street like a wave, and before I knew it, all the ponies were stampeding away from me as fast as they could gallop in both directions. I stared after them with my jaw slightly agape.

When there were no more ponies in sight, I swallowed thickly. Did I just make an enormous mistake?

I spun on my hooves and galloped back to the alley entrance. I found Nephila cowering behind a dumpster. She shot me a death glare when I came into view. Her emotions were a storm of terror and fury, and she was physically shaking.

"Uh…" I started, but then I snapped my mouth closed. I had no idea what to say to her.

"I’m sorry," I tried shakily after a moment of gathering my thoughts, still very much in shock. "I should have taken you seriously and listened to you."

Nephila clenched her jaw and bared her teeth. Her fury did not subside.

"I know you’re very upset," I tried to reason. "But I think we should get away from here. The fleeing ponies probably called the guards."

I heard the faint sounds of metal hitting cobblestone in the distance. I took a peek around the corner to see a pair of guards in their shining golden armor galloping down the street in our direction.

"Yeah," I said hastily. "We need to leave. Like, now."

I leapt to Nephila’s side and began to push her back towards the courtyard with my nose. "Come on, run!"

Thankfully she seemed to get it, as she quickly began to run at my side of her own volition.

I heard alien shouts at the alley’s entrance as we set foot in the courtyard. Then the metal hoofsteps started galloping down the alleyway.

"Shit!’ I exclaimed under my breath. I was hoping the guards would pass the alley by. How did they know where we were?

I frantically looked around for a place to run. My eyes passed over our old shed, but that was a no-go for a hiding spot. It was too obvious, and I had no doubt the guards would look there first.

I spotted another alleyway leading out of the courtyard on the side opposite from us. I pointed it out to Nephila.

"Run there!" I cried.

Nephila and I sprinted across the open ground, breathing heavily. Just as we ducked into the new alley, I heard the guards’ hoofsteps enter the courtyard. They didn’t even stop to investigate the shed—they just kept galloping after us. And they were gaining ground.

This second alley had a T-junction about halfway down its length. Hoping to increase the chances the guards would lose us, I pointed it out to Nephila and then sprinted into the side alley. We ran down the alley’s short length and then came to another turn, which we took without hesitation.

I gasped when we came to a dead end, and we both skidded to a halt. There was nothing back here except for one dumpster and a metal door leading into one of the residential buildings. I bolted for the door and lifted myself onto my hind hooves in order to try the handle, but it was locked.

I fell back down to all fours and looked around desperately. I wanted to say flying away was an option, but the alley was surrounded on all sides by the tall buildings. Even if I could somehow pull off flying so high, I would be super slow. And I hadn’t even seen Nephila fly once, so I doubted she could do it either. That wasn’t a realistic strategy.

I could still hear the guards’ hoofsteps coming for us. There was no way we could backtrack without running into them. I eyed the dumpster. With only moments to make a decision, I suddenly came up with an extremely stupid idea.

I rushed back to Nephila, who was standing in the middle of the alley and looking lost. She was still filled with terror, but it seemed she had forgotten most of her anger during the chase.

I tapped her shoulder and started pushing her towards the dumpster.

"Get in the dumpster, Nephy," I insisted with a low voice, hoping the guards wouldn’t be able to hear me.

I gestured until she understood, and she hooked her forehooves on the rim to pull herself up. I helped her out by pushing on her butt with my own hooves until she made it over and fell into the pile of trash.

She quickly peeked out over the rim to look down at me. I took a deep breath.

"This is my fault," I whispered. "You were right, and I should have listened. You don’t deserve whatever those guys have planned for us, so I’ll let them take me. I’m pretty sure they think there’s only one of us, so you’ll be safe once they have what they want. Just keep hiding until you hear that they’re gone."

With that, I forcibly pushed her head down into the trash to make sure she was hidden. Then I turned and took a few steps towards where the dead end met the side alley. I kept to the corner, staying just out of sight as I waited for what I knew was inevitable.

I tried to take deep breaths as my heart hammered in my ears, but it didn’t do much to calm me. The guards’ hoofsteps steadily drew closer—they must have figured that they had us cornered, so they had stopped galloping and were now approaching at a comfortable walk.

My fear made thinking almost impossible, but one question refused to leave my mind: why did these ponies still hate changelings? It didn’t make any sense.

I heard the clop of hooves against cobblestone behind me. I turned my head back in surprise to see that Nephila had jumped down from the dumpster with an orange basketball held in her forehooves.

My eyes widened in panic. The guards would be here in seconds, there was no time!

"Nephila!" I hissed, almost hysterical. "Get back in the dumpster! Right now!"

Nephila shot me a frown and a scathing glare, but I didn’t feel any true anger behind it.

I flinched back in shock when, all of a sudden, Nephila was engulfed in green flame. When it passed, there stood a young unicorn filly with a creamy coat and a simple pink mane and tail with no cutie marks on her flanks.

I gaped at her. When did she learn how to shape-shift?

Nephila threw the basketball into the alley.

Then, to my immense horror, she ran out into the open after it.