To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

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The field around you is red, white, and green. There is no life to be found here except for you, and even your fur is stained. Bones have been bleached white under the blazing sun. The weather pegasi must not patrol this part of the nation. Maybe it crosses some sort of political line. Intestines and chunks of flesh that you missed are lying around and flies should be above them. The shining crimson is slowly drying and turning into a rusty brown. The smell of death still hangs in the air, along with the sound of silence. Every living thing in the valley is in your stomach. Fifteen dear, thirty rabbits, five large birds, twenty-two small birds, thirteen mice, seven hundred forty seven ants, three hundred fifty six flies, and six snakes. As it turns out, comfort food works. It is only minutes after the blood bath, but you don't remember anything about that guard. What was its name again? You decide to stop thinking before you remember, and it spoils the fun. The cold shadow of the mountain comes down after a few hours and blots out the sun.

"Time to start moving." You say out loud.

It echoes through the valley, and you start on your way. The mountain itself is massive. It towers over everything in a radius of many miles, with small rocks falling from various positions on it. When you start the climb, you find out why. The mountain is vibrating. Not consistently like a machine would, but with tremors about a second apart. Almost as if something huge was walking. Then it occurs to you that, if you had wings, you could fly over the mountain instead of walk around it. You can feel the wing bones growing from your spine and grow larger every second. You feel them lengthen, extend, and you flap them a few times to check if they work properly. The wings are so large that the test movements take you off the ground. You bring one down to your face to look at it. The most efficient design was that of a bird, but this was something you didn't expect. Around a sixty-foot wingspan, with feathers that had that managed to change into different colors of the rainbow every few seconds. You launch yourself off the ground, and the feathers reflect the light of the sun into beautiful colors. Normally your wings were black and white, and your heart sinks when you start to think of why they might be this colorful.

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Raven Heart was one of the few ponies that wore clothes. In the griffon kingdoms she had worn her armor day and night, because she never trusted the forceful birds, now she just felt weird without something covering her body. It also discouraged ponies from staring most of the time. She had always been told that she was beautiful, but like all pretty girls, never believed it. But here she was walking around naked in her house. In all reality her coat was completely black, but it was thin and exposed the not quite black skin under the fur when under the sun. She could grow it out so that it was a complete cover, but that got too hot under armor. The violet tipped primary feathers certainly lent to the name raven, but another reason she wore clothes was that, amazingly, she hadn't gotten her cutie mark yet. It was just an expanse of black fur, that she had convinced herself would never be covered. She knew that her job was her only passion, but she had never really tried anything else. Her grandfather was the first stallion to ever be guard captain, her father died in battle weeks before she was born, and her mother was the best fighter in the guard until she retired. She was destined for this job, she knew it was what would her cutie mark would be from if she ever got one, but something was missing. She guessed she could sympathize with the poor creature that she had guarded before he escaped in a hole created by a dragon, that she knew wasn't an accident. She had never really felt love. She had felt grief, sorrow, fear, etc, but never love. Her mother took care of her until she was fourteen, and then kicked her out with a large sum of money. Celestia heard of this and immediately hired her as a guard, she trained endlessly with no love for herself, no pony ever dared approach the prodigy of the best fighter in the guard, and no one ever showed interest in her except the so-called monster. There was a knocking sound. She walked over to the door of her rather expensive house, hid her flank behind the frame, and opened it.

"Hello." She said to the mail pony. Her soft voice had always annoyed her. She could have been a model with her body and voice, but the voice didn't fit someone in the royal guard.

"Mail." The brown pony said back.

He was used to seeing her like she was. One time she even forget to hide her flank, so he knew about that too. He was always nice enough though. No advances, no small talk, just business. She wasn't sure she liked it that way anymore.

"Have a nice day." The mail pony said after he fished out the letters and handed them to Raven.

After that he flew away. Raven closed the door, walked through about five rooms in the mansion she had saved up to buy for herself, and deposited the envelopes in her study. She walked up two flights of stairs and into her room. Princess sized bed with white velvet sheets. She was one of the richest ponies in Equestria but no one really cared. The room was one of the smallest in the house but was still the size of a standard family room. Floor to ceiling one-way glass windows were on one wall, and the rest of the room was made of marble like the rest of the building. She sat on the sheets, and as she looked out the window, she realized how alone she really was.

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The mountain was tall. So tall in fact, that you had to change your lungs just to get enough oxygen for you to breath, but you finally reached the top. Sure you could have gone around the mountain half-way down, but you like to see what you are going up against. The massive tree was walking, rotting, and complaining. To most, this probably would have been quite a sight, but it was normal for you. You had met a massive crab living in a small lake, and the moving trees were certainly something you had seen before. Sure they were a lot smaller than this, and they weren't rotting with a hive of creatures inside them, but it wasn't much different. The others always complained just like this one. Not enough water, not enough sun, not enough space. Just a few of the many complaints they filed into the sky. A cloud of black dots surrounded this one though. You force your body to become transparent. Now all you did was cast a distorted half-shadow. You launch yourself off the peak and rush towards the ground. The air streams past you, and soon you feel it pressing down all around you. You tried to remember what this meant as you dodged rocks at slightly sub-sonic speeds. When you finally remember what it means, you speed up. This will give them a distraction so that you can sneak into the tree. As you reach the bottom of the mountain and curve into the valley, a deafening crack sounds behind you and everything seems to slow. You look behind you and see nothing but a rainbow colored distortion blazing through the air.

"Ahahahahahaha!" The tree chuckled.

Within a second you slam into the pile of rotting bark, and smash a hole through it.

Random panicking.

You stand up, your wings shrink back into your spine, and your fur hardens into scales. You look at the panicking creatures around you. Black with small fangs, all with different colored eyes, and filled with holes. If these were changelings, than a synonym would be worthless waste of flesh. That's when you saw them changing. Nothing anywhere near as advanced as you, but still impressive. The only problem you could see, was that they used magic to change judging by the horns on their heads. You see no threat, and will your colors to come back.

"What is that?" Ten of them ask at the exact same time.

Either they all knew each other way too much, or they shared something. This new development gave you reason to look closer. You to a step forward, and several took steps back at the same time. You make eye contact with one, and a few of them flinch, including ones that are in your peripheral vision. It seemed that they had a hive mind. An interesting trait for a species built on change. A much larger changeling wearing a crown approached you through the crowd.

"Give me a single reason why I shouldn't have them kill you." She demanded.

"I would win." You growl.

"I doubt that." She laughed.

A tail grew out of the end of your spine. You wave it in front of her face, and blades grow out of various places.

"Getting better." She said.

Your tail swung in a large arc, and grew while it sliced through more than air. Five rows of heads and bodies fell to the wood in a semicircle with a sickening thud. Blue blood poured onto the ancient bark along with severed vertebrae, and organs. The entire tree shook as it laughed, and the queen flinched.

"Is there anything else you would like to test?" Your voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Welcome to the hive." She said, impressed.

Author's Note

Writing fanfiction, when I'm supposed to be writing an essay. Isn't it wonderful? All constructive criticism and compliments are accepted.