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Shift’s POV
It was like entering a dream.
I opened my eyes, still reeling from that weird flash of light. Expecting to still be sitting in the clearing, I was shocked to see something else entirely. It was a place like nowhere I had ever seen before on Earth or Equestria.
An endless expanse of space stretched farther than infinity, completely occupied by more stars than I had beheld. Even the flat plane on which I stood was made completely of tiny points of softly-glimmering white light. Actually, no... once I looked closer at the ground, I found that it wasn’t the stars themselves; the points of light were spaced too far apart. Instead, it was just an invisible surface that was covered in a dense cloud of stars... or whatever else these lights were.
There was something else I noticed as I was peering at my hooves. At first, I thought it was the odd lighting playing tricks on my eyes. But, when I lifted my foreleg into view, I saw that I was horribly right.
My legs were holed. Like a regular Changeling’s.
“Gah!” I shook my leg, then my head, trying to convince myself it was some kind of dream or hallucination. But no matter what I did, I came to realize that I was indeed fully awake. “What..!? What the buck happened to me!?”
“Hmph. A simple ‘thank-you’ would have sufficed,” A vibrato female voice harrumphed nearby.
With a yelp of surprise, I spun around to face the voice. Standing in the starlight next to me was the slender form of an alicorn. She had an off-black coat that was layered in regular sections and oily wings with green-tipped feathers. Her mane and tail flowed like Luna’s or Celestia’s, but were made of some kind of amorphous, fluorescent-green substance. The mark on her flank was some kind of green blob that looked very much like a butterfly. She probably had another head of height on me, but was definitely no giant. Green eyes that seemed to glow in the starlight blinked at me with an almost bored look. Black and green summed up this mare’s entire color scheme. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she looked a lot like a Chrysalis. Strangely, she didn’t broadcast any emotions... not any that I could pick up, anyway.
“But... but I...” I stammered, lifting my leg again. “You did this?”
“Did I stutter?”
“No, but...” I scraped my brain for some kind of retort. “But why!?” I finally spat angrily. “That was what set me apart from the rest of those mindless monsters! gave me emotions! It made me unique from creatures that had no diversity! It gave me an identity beyond just ‘Changeling!’ It--!”
“It was a genetic disorder that would have been the death of you in barely a year. Now stop griping and be grateful, you foolish bug,” she snapped at me. “Your empathy ‘sickness’ is another affliction entirely, and one that I would wish upon all my children. I wouldn’t take your feelings from you even if it meant your death.”
I was taken aback by her words. Genetic disorder...? I wondered to myself, staring at a hole in my hoof thoughtfully. That’s why I looked different? But... how did she know? Moreover, who IS she!?
“Besides,” continued the mysterious alicorn. “I took the liberty of giving you a more... personalized appearance, so to speak.”
Before I could ask what she meant, her horn lit up with a bright green glow. In front of me, the air shimmered and wavered uneasily, then formed into an elliptical shape, perpendicular to the ground. Its surface wobbled for a few moments before settling into a material that was perfectly reflective. A mirror.
“Whoa...” I gasped as I stared at my reflection. Of course, each leg was dotted with gaping holes that seemed to be just drilled straight through at random points, like a normal Changeling. However, much had been altered. I still had my jagged horn, but it was poking through a mane of ruffled green that hung just above my eyes, very similar to the style on my disguised form. Along with the horn were two antler-like protrusions on either side of my head. On my back, a green-teal shell was attached just below where my neck ended, though it seemed to serve little purpose, considering that my wings (now green, like many of my other features) were always exposed. Two green bands wrapped around my abdomen like some kind of belt holding the shell in place. To my amusement, I discovered a short, cropped tail that, like my mane, matched the one my disguised form had. My cutie mark, the double-swirl of white, green, and lavender stars, was unchanged.
“I assume you are pleased?” asked the alicorn, giving me a look.
I nodded. “I like it a lot, yeah, but...” I turned back to her with a befuddled look. “Why? Who are you?” I asked her, then looked back over the starry landscape. “...and where am I?”
The alicorn followed my gaze out into the expanse. “This is a projection in your mind’s eye, no more real than a dream,” she answered. “What you are seeing is a place called the Astral Sea, a realm that coincides with the physical world; one that only High Immortals may enter... without burning away, at least.” As if it were a joke between friends, the alicorn chuckled a little. “It is where those who embody the aspects of the world dwell and direct the world.”
“So this is some kinda telepathic vision you’re sending me?” I asked.
She pondered this, rubbing her chin. “Not exactly. I like to think of it as your soul and consciousness being in limbo between the Astral Sea and the world,” the alicorn stated. “This way, we can carry out what must be done without risking one of us falling into the other realm.”
“You still haven’t answered my first question,” I pointed out. “Who are you, and why am I here?”
“Ah, right, sorry... I often get distracted, as is my mindset.” the alicorn apologized, facehoofing lightly. “My name is Morpha. I am the Aspect of Change of the First Pantheon.”
I blinked curiously at the additional titles. “...Shift. I’m a Changeling.”
“I can see that,” replied Morpha sarcastically. “Though a Changeling you are, there is something special about you in particular. Something that has shaped yourself and others around you in a way that no other Changeling has.”
“Empathy sickness, right?” I guessed. “Changelings aren’t supposed to have emotions.”
“Well, yes and no,” Morpha answered, waving her hoof vaguely in a circle. “Those with empathy sickness are unique indeed from the mindless Hive drone, in that they are capable of independent thought and feeling, but what I’m referring to is something especially rare among all the races of Terra.”
Leaning over, Morpha poked my chest playfully. “You change the very hearts of ponies around you.”
Looking down, I put a hoof on the piece of chitin over my heart. It felt oddly warm, like a small ember burned within. “That’s it?” I said, a little disappointedly.
“Do not look so unimpressed, Shift,” replied Morpha, a tone of offense in her voice. “It is no small feat to change the very nature of a pony. Do you recall what happened when Twilight Sparkle’s friends discovered your true visage?”
My mind flashed back to that day: being strapped to a chair in front of Twilight, forced to reveal to the one I loved most that I was a creature of monstrosity and deceit, then feeling myself be torn apart inside when she fled. It was the worst experience of my life, and I recalled it as if it happened yesterday. “That was the day I thought I had lost her...” I told Morpha.
“True, but remember further. What about her friends?” she prompted.
Her friends...? I did remember. As soon as they found out that my feelings for Twilight were real, that I did truly love her, the taste of hatred all but vanished from them. Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie all tried to reconcile for their actions (with a little yelling on Storm’s part, of course). Rarity even made me a uniform...
Suddenly, I realized what Morpha meant. Despite their hatred, Twilight’s friends immediately moved past them to help me win her back. It was as if they had completely forgotten I was a Changeling. “You mean that I changed their hearts? That’s why they forgave me so quickly?”
“They were hardly the only ones,” Morpha chuckled at my surprise. “Twilight herself, her brother, and the Aspect of Love- you know her as Cadance -were also affected by your aura. A true testament to your ability.”
This put a smile on my face; one that grew as I considered the alicorn’s words. While at first it seemed like a trivial thing, I began to value it as a gift of great significance.
“...and ability that will be tested in the days to come.”
I’msorrywaitwhat? “Excuse... me...?”
Morpha’s cheerful expression had vanished. What had replaced it was a terrifyingly serious visage, one that foretold a doom to swiftly come. “There is a darkness fast approaching, Shift,” Morpha said forebodingly. “One that cannot be fought through the Elements of Harmony alone.”
A force too powerful for the Elements of Harmony!? My mind just couldn’t conceive it. What could be so terrible that the very embodiments of Harmony are no match for it? “But what is it?” I asked, more than a little frightened.
“Something older than time itself,” she answered vaguely.
I opened my mouth to question her further, but was interrupted by a bright flash of light, similar to the one that had occurred in the clearing. When the intensity of the light faded to tolerable levels, I blinked open my eyes again. My mouth dropped open at what I saw.
In front of us, just above the sea of endless stars, floated wavering, flickering images of several familiar figures. All of them hung in the air with blank expressions and wings outstretched in broad poses. In the center of the arc, my own likeness- holding my new appearance -stood side-by-side with the mirage of Twilight. Directly left of Twilight and I was Cadance and Shining Armor, then Celestia at that end.
To our right stood Luna and... a pony that I initially identified as Skyblaze, but with several differences in his figure. For one thing, the normally diminutive stallion was now just as tall as Luna. His open wings had much more elegant feathers, each primary tipped with a fringe of teal. On his flanks, instead of a book and quill, the image of a golden feather and a teal crescent moon emblazoned either flank. From his forehead, just above the three white specks on the bride of his nose, a long, spear-like horn jutted out of his mane. It was Skyblaze... as an alicorn.
“It’s all of them...” I breathed in amazement. “Every alicorn in Canterlot Valley.” Looking back to the image of myself, I tilted my head. “...and me, for some reason.”
“No, you were partially correct,” Morpha said. “This is every High Immortal on Terra, barring Chrysalis and Discord... and including yourself.”
As her words struck home, I gasped. No way... “I’m a... but I don’t...”
“Shift the Changeling.” Morpha rested her hoof on my shoulder, gazing at me with an unreadable expression.
Suddenly, all around the two of us, the constructed world of stars began to dissolve into a swirling void of green and white, with us in the epicenter of the vortex of light and magic. My first instinct was to duck away and flee, but I found myself somehow frozen in place by the hoof on my shoulder. My eyes were locked on Morpha’s, the green orbs staring through me. Behind them, the alicorn’s pupils brightened and colored to match.
“Shift the Changeling,” she repeated, her voice echoing from everywhere, even from within myself. “I, Morpha, Aspect of Change, do as I have done since my birth, and change you. From wretched drone to Changeling Prince, mortal to High Immortal, creature formerly of Earth and presently of Terra to the very embodiment of Change itself.” I felt a jolt run through my form, stimulating every particle of my being, as the eye of the violent tempest of magic closed in. “In the eternity before you, carry out your task as you have been. May the very soul of the universe bend and twist at your will. May your power watch as all things come and go, move from place to place, shrink and grow. Take this nymph of a world and make it into something beautiful.”
Everything went black. I felt as if I was falling slowly, tumbling gracefully down to reality.
In the dark, I heard one last whisper: “Farewell, Shift, Aspect of Change.”