Lunch break had just ended, and Sam was walking through the halls and corridors, carrying a folder and some ballpoint pens as he passed by dozens of doors.
None of these doors were of one drab shade of some dull color. They’re all unique in a way: This door had stripes, that one had polka dots, and yet this other one continued the pony tradition of putting cartoon hearts on random items. It could be deduced from that observation that ponies were big on heart.
Sam had found this aesthetic quirk only slightly helpful. While Equestrians were quite artistic and creative, he found it quite cumbersome and unrestrained as some doors blended in with each other. The letters and numbers codifying each door were enough; he wasn’t used to memorizing what amounted to paintings for important room.
Granted, he didn’t access the deeper parts of the bureau which was where much of the creativity had been unleashed upon the poor walls and doors, where paint buckets stood in stacks and pyramids. Still, it was straining to his eyes.
However, the rare map on the wall finally helped him get to his destination.
New Equestrian Residences
This broad space was decorated with a couple drawings of homes and houses on the main walls. Past the armored pony guards with their spears, there were several doors, each with a hoofwritten or claw-written or appendage-written script of the resident’s names. Some had their old human names on it, others had their new species-oriented ones, and a few desired clarity and had both names on their cheap plaques.
Mrs. Crowley was of the latter.
Standing before the door, Sam read her names.
Laura Crowley/Colea; Changeling.
He raised his hand.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
A few seconds. Nothing.
“Coming!”
Sam breathed a sigh of relief, but he remained on the alert. He sensed no sniffles, no invisible tears exposed in her voice. Not a single tremble or tremor, even. He first chalked it up to her being a changeling—and, therefore, being a very good actress and very good at hiding emotions—but he banished the thought soon after.
Buzzes. He heard buzzes.
Click! Clang!
The door slowly opened, revealing the changeling’s green face, Crowley hovering to his level with wings flapping rapid. Her ears drooped out of shyness as she put on a small grin for the volunteer.
Sam waved at her, returning that small grin. “Uh, hi! How are you?”
“Fine,” she replied coolly, her wings slowing down so to lessen the buzzing. Then, looking straight at him with those compound eyes, “What’re you doing here?”
“Well, it’s my afternoon shift,” Sam said jovially, lifting both his hands like he was pulling a jumper. “That’s when I go around the residences and check up on everyone, see if they’re doing OK.”
“And why am I your first stop?” Crowley asked, narrowing her eyes rather suspiciously but with a knowing smile.
“N-No!” and Sam had both hands up in self-defense. “I don’t mean to become a changeling and flir—”
Crowley giggled, cutting his little hysteria short. “You’d be crazy to try anyway.” Pointing at herself with confidence, “I became a changeling for a good reason.”
“Right, right…” with Sam nodding his head, almost bowing down to make up for his mistake. Glancing back and hoping to escape this awkward situation, “I guess this is my time to leave…? Or, should I, uh, at least really make sure you’re OK?”
Crowley lifted a cheek in another smile, her buzzing wings continuing to fill his ears with that insectoid droning. “You’re nice from what I’ve seen so far.”
Sam was a little taken aback. …nice from what I’ve seen so far. Was this an unconscious jab at him? Then again, no one was expected to know everything about another person in two days, and Sam took solace in that.
“You can come in,” Crowley said, opening the door a bit more and also making way for him to strut in.
Sam effected a sincere, big smile for the changeling to copy. “OK, then!”
So, he walked inside.
Before, Sam had seen pictures of the new ponies’ rooms and they were par for the course, ranging from wooden cottage bedrooms to apartment-style studios. However, this one had never been advertised to him: all dimensions fashioned out of mossed stone, bed and other furniture built out of timber and rocks, appliances powered by a synergy of electricity and magic, vines hanging over the jagged walls—all illuminated by an eerie larva-like lamp hanging from the ceiling, casting its glow upon the quarters dark and bleak.
Everything was bestowed a slight sheen of green. A spring bud outline formed out of everything under the repugnant stench of the dining table’s servings of fried bugs.
Crowley saw Sam flex his absent muscles to pinch his nose. She chuckled again, though with a blush this time. “Sorry! You caught me eating.” Hovering over to her chair, shooting fast like a fly to sugar, “It’s changeling cuisine.”
Sam coughed, wheezed at the intolerable stink. “Apologies, missus, but I rather don’t like having—cagh!—flies for breakfast!”
“Why shouldn’t you?” Crowley asked, much to the dismay of a helpless Sam as he wallowed in bad odor. “Don’t you like blue cheese?”
Sam finally took a good look at the insect-ridden food, seeing maggots squirm all over the rotten cheese.
“Who knew changelings like Italy for their casu marzu?” she said, absorbed by an appetizing meal fit for a changeling king. “I also got fried pupae on a stick, deep fried crickets in a bowl, roast beetle—”
“Are you trying to make me puke?!” Sam retched with his tightly-pinched nose. Even with that, he could still pick up the strong scent of rancid ingredients and noxious pests, sensing his head becoming light.
Crowley snapped out of her tasty harangue, blushing once more. “Heh-heh! Hold on.”
She dashed to one end of the room, grabbed a small blanket, and covered the dining table and its food with the cloth, making the stench disappear like magic.
Sam let go of his nose and heaved in a big gulp of air. Consoled by the smell that was no more, he had his torment ended. With renewed energy, his eyes refocused, properly adapting to the dim environment he was in.
He spotted a chair, a wooden one whose appearance matched that of the table. No cushions or pillows, but he sat on it anyway, knowing that a hard chair that strained his buttocks was better than no chair at all.
Well, there was standing, but his legs were quite tired from all the lugging and carrying around of boxes thanks to the new potion shipment.
“Sorry I didn’t catch up on you sooner,” said Sam. He pulled out a pencil, ready to record some observations with the folder and paper on his lap. “We had a seminar, and you seemed to be busy.” Raised an eyebrow. “Guess you’re learning the changeling lifestyle, no?” and leaned back on the rather stony backrest.
Crowley pulled out a chair from the table, and placed it beside Sam’s. She sat on it and answered, “Yeah. Reolata’s been helping me get through.”
“Like walking on four legs all the time?” Sam asked right away, mindlessly tapping his knee with his writing instrument.
Crowley lifted her cheek again, this time annoyed at this preemptive questioner. “Honestly? It wasn’t that bad. It’s like crawling but you have to do it a lot more. I can still walk on two legs, but that’ll be awkward. So, I just stay on all fours.”
“Which you have to do all the time?” Sam further prodded, then hid a wince at stepping too far over conversational boundaries.
Crowley spread her wings, pink and transparent just like a fly’s—a pink fly’s, yes. They shone delicately under the soft green light, little spots twinkling. “Not all the time.”
Baffled at first by the suggestion, Sam then became more baffled at how he missed those wings. “Huh. Must’ve forgotten about that.”
“Come on!” she blurted out with tilted head, closing her wings. “I’m probably the first new changeling you’ve met in this city. You should’ve noticed by now, really.”
Sam made a sheepish smile, doing his best to cover up his foolishness. “Clumsy me, right?”
Crowley snickered at that. “That’s not the right word.”
But, instead of thinking up something witty to get back at her, Sam just basked in the moment and slouched on his chair. Crowley took the cue and basked in it, too, slumping on her chair...or, as best as she could with all four hooves on the cold seat.
They reclined in the room’s darkness. Free from the disgusting smell of dinner, Sam and Laura took it in, too in that feeling of midnight in the middle of the day. Relaxing in the peaceful calm, eyes falling upon simple designs: the rocky architecture, the hobbled-up furniture, the room’s smallness, the changeling inhabitant....
“How’s your day?” Sam asked to break the silence, turning to face Crowley who was engrossed by the ceiling lamp.
Looking away from her distraction, Crowley turned to Sam, her head still creeping him out as he tried to accustom himself to it. She bean, “I wanna say it’s been great...but, you know,” raised her wings again, “it takes some time getting used to another species entirely.”
Sam nodded, taking the time to recollect his thoughts. “How’s your...eating habits?”
“Well, the insects taste very good and—” that’s when she caught wind of his meaning. Her ears drooped again, the changeling becoming a bit soft-spoken. “Oh. You mean the love-sharing thing?”
Sam shrugged his shoulders, staying positive and upbeat with her. “Yeah. What about it?” He paused, seeing if Crowley had a quick answer to it. “Because, having to eat an emotion, a conscious act, a condition...like, how can you digest love? It’s hard to wrap my head around that concept.”
“It’s hard for my head, too,” she confessed. “I get that it works and I technically get the hang of it, but how it works?” Crowley pursed her lips, looking off to the mossy wall. “No clue.”
Sam turned his eyes back to his lap’s papers. “I’ve read some info about that. Had to do it to be competent in answering questions.” He sighed, calling to memory model illustrations and bullet point lists of facts. “I know it has magic involved—something about thaumic energy and how it reacts to one’s emotional levels, but...well, I just memorize. Haven’t really understood it.”
Crowley rested a hoof on her hard and shiny chitin forehead. “Reolata said explaining it to non-changelings has always been difficult.”
“I mean, I get it,” Sam said with open arms ready not for a hug but a shrug. “How can you explain eating love to someone who’s never done it before? And I don’t mean getting a kick out of seeing people happy or what, I mean really eating love? Like a hamburger of love?”
That fetched a chortle from the changeling, able to wrap her mind around a literal hamburger of love: two buns, some lettuce, some bacon, some tomatoes, and, drizzled with ketchup and mustard, that ethereal pink stream of substance known as love. That sweet, sweet love—only for a dollar and ninety-nine, maybe.
What Sam was left with was a changeling mulling over such a wonderful creation.
After a minute of such thinking, she whirled her head at Sam. A sheepish smile returned to her face, conveying a hint of embarrassment at being spaced out.
Sam recognized it and leaned back on his stony chair again, wanting to change the subject to something more productive. “OK, let’s try—” fumbled with his folder and papers, almost dropped his pencil, furrowed his brows at a certain word on the paper “—what your friends and loved ones think about you now that you’re a changeling,” and put up a smile that covered his own embarrassment.
Crowley lifted a hoof to her chin, her mind retracing her steps and the people she’d spent some time with over the past week or two. “Uh, first thing that comes to mind is Rogie, but he hasn’t said anything yet.”
Sam tilted his head, looking very thoughtful with a pencil on his ear. “How come? That should’ve been a significant moment between the two of you, especially since you’re a couple as the same species.” Then, putting one arm over his chest, he asked, “Did you at least see his facial reaction?”
“That’s the thing, really,” she said, voice drifting off. “He wasn’t there yesterday, nor today.”
Sam put much of his weight forward. This elsewhere husband was an interesting development. “You haven’t met at all since then? Actually...where is he, anyway?”
“Had some errands to do,” she replied quickly, becoming a bit despondent as she scratched her foreleg. “Go meet with some friends in Humboldt county. He’s supposed to return today, actually, and his first order of business is to come and see me.”
Sam looked at the closed door and, as he expected, heard no knocks or footsteps. Or hoofsteps, clawsteps, pawsteps, any other kind of steps. “Why didn’t you settle for a day when he’s free?”
Crowley went a little quiet at that inquiry. “It was sudden, sort of. His friends are also changelings both Earth and Equestrian. They’re coming from a trip in Alaska.”
There it was. Alaska.
Sam leaned in a little close, trying to disguise what else he knew about Alaska. “What were they doing up there? That’s a bit far for a casual hang out...although maybe it’s the snow,” and mellowed down, hoping she wouldn’t tense up. “And the aurora borealis, too. I’ve never seen them up close myself.”
Crowley cringed, bothered by this growing investigation. “There’s that, and...a-and—”
While she was starting to choke on her words, Sam looked away to hide a painful grimace. Perhaps he’d been too straightforward. The questions were very pointed; perhaps they were getting on the nose too early. Then again, she’d been vocal about it with Reolata if what he’d heard was of any indication. She should be able to spill the beans right here and right now. But, even with that, she had spent more time with Reolata than some average volunteer who had almost no experience with new changelings adapting to a new everything.
But he could try. There was that option.
Then, she sniffed. Wiped her runny nose with a hoof that walked around in contact with dirt and germs, but neither she nor Sam thought of that.
As for Sam: he flinched, grabbed on to his chair. He readied his legs, preparing to stand up and leave the room. Giving her the time to reflect upon whatever had happened was probably the polite thing to d—
“Don’t, sir.”
He stopped right there, seated on a hard, cold, rough, and inconvenient seat.
Saw a hesitant Laura reaching out to him with a hoof. She opened her wings, maybe to catch him if he did intend to leave.
Sam gulped. He was desperate to say, I’ll let you be; I don’t know what you’re going through. However, he reminded himself of why he was here: to figure out the truth, or at least some of it, straight from the source.
So, he fully rested on his seat once more, prepared to listen to an emotional changeling, prepared to withstand an outpouring of emotion—of melancholy, sorrow, guilt, whatever it’d be.
Laura sighed. Eyes closed, head turned down to the mossy and uneven floor dimmed by the darkness. Closed her eyes more, eyelids scrunched up under the pressure.
It’s about your brother, isn’t it? but Sam held it in.
Laura choked, coughed. “I...I g-got some bad news from...f-from Rogie wh-while he was in Alaska....”
Sam slowly leaned closer, secretly hoping she’d talk about what was in his mind: About your missing brother, isn’t it?
“Th-There was a—” sniffled, rubbed her nose and staining it with snot.
Whitaker? and Sam closed his mouth, cutting off all temptation to ruin the delicate mood.
Then, a tear glimmered on the changeling’s cheek, glimmering a sickly green as it dropped to the floor.
Sam took note of that lonesome tear, dreadful that it would be the first of many. “Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, then—”
“I’ll talk about it!”
And her voice rang, bounced off the walls.
It haunted Sam, that hollow reverberation, that ringing echo. The feeling of a sympathizing sorrow overcame him, anticipation rising up in his heart as the guesses came over just as Crowley herself was bending over to that mental beat, head in her forehooves to block any incoming tears to betray an emotion or a plethora of them, to reveal the person behind the smile, a—
Sniffed. “It’s...d-do you know….”
Whitaker. Just say it and we’ll all be better off.
She looked up, eyes moist but not enough to spill over into a bitter flood. Seeing that feeling face of a considerate Sam, wondering what he might say, wondering what his reaction might be. Then, throwing all caution to the wind, she blathered, “I-It’s about h-him—m-my Wh-Whittie.”
Nice nickname aside, Sam shooed that complement off his mind. Now was no time to be calling things nice and cute, especially with a sensitive subject in play. Anything could happen, and a weeping changeling under his watch wouldn’t be the best of things.
Crowley raised her head, stared hard at those eyes waiting or dying for an answer. She tried to find the words, and she ended up with: “I-It’s said he’s just gone missing...’cause he wanted to become a dragon, and we were all going to have a party for him...and then, a-and then—”
“You couldn’t contact him?” Sam finally asked, breaking his silence in this cramped and dingy room. “Did you go ask around?”
“We did th-the best we could,” she managed, voice clogged by a tightening throat. “Called everyone. They even started a search before it got called off.” Turned away, unable to face her helper. “They say he just went up and away—that’s what the bureau officials say, but….”
“But what?” Sam asked, hoping he’d use his I-have-other-creatures-to-visit card as his excuse to speed things up if things went too slow for him.
Crowley fidgeted with her forehooves, pawing the rugged, rocky moss-covered surface before her. “We never saw a-any pictures of him as a dragon. All we have is a photo of his old self minutes before he w-went inside.” She instinctively reached out for her phone, then realized she didn’t have it in reach, or in the room at all.
Sam cocked his head. “Well, what do you think happened to him? Kidnap and ransom? Didn’t like his form and stowed away in Equestria? Maybe something happened during the transformation and he had to recuperate?” He opened a hand at that idea. “That can happen.”
“But they would’ve told us!” Crowley countered, holding up her hooves to get a hold of herself. “They wouldn’t be so secretive, not now when it’s my brother at stake!” Then, she shook her head, horrified by her own suggestions. “What i-if they’re experimenting on him?”
Sam almost stood up at that. “That’d be dumb. They wouldn’t do that, not without causing international controversy and getting into both worlds’ most wanted lists.”
“But they’d do it anyway,” she replied deadpan, glum at the whole ordeal. “No...what if the potion went haywire? What if he’s not a dragon, but...something else? A mutant? A horrible mutant?!” and smothered her face in her forehooves again.
Sam sighed, seeing this pitiable creature in pity. “Laura, I know that he’s very close to you and you love him very much. However, what I want to ask of you is to stay calm and breathe.”
Laura did breathe but only to seize it in huge gulps. Quickly: “I-I’m not sure if I c-could do that! Wh-What if he’s dead? I can’t just leave him dead! He’s the only one I have and—”
“Laura. Breathe.”
Nothing.
In that dark room, the lamp illuminated everything in a subtle green outline.
She froze. Stopped in place.
Nothing, as Sam watched every single move from her.
Then, she sniffed.
She looked down.
More tears dropped.
And she cried.
Lunged at him, crying on his shoulders as his shirt dampened.
Sam sat there, not knowing what to say.
However, he knew what to do: Pat her on the back, and let the tears flow in that dark, cramped room.