I Am A Soldier [Nanowrimo]

by GreyVestibule

Chapter 9 - The Confrontation

Chapter Nine – The Confrontation

The soldier stared at the canteen of water laying next to the familiar bed. After what had happened before in the night, regurgitating fluids, the doctor had been adamant about her drinking to replace them. The soldier had been doing a little drinking, but it was only token amounts, to see like she had. In a way she wished she could explain, but of course, if that was a possibility then this situation would be completely different. At least that stallion had gotten the rest part right, she definitely needed that to allow her body to realign itself. However, she did need nutrition. Unfortunately the vitamins that were vital to pony health did nothing to fill her. She needed to feed on someone, but there was no pony around that would serve that purpose conveniently. And even if they did, it was currently in the middle of the day, when a suddenly sleeping or woozy pony would be suspicious nearby her – especially with the current risks at play. The only reason she wasn't out looking for some pony to feed on in a convenient hidden spot where she could at least move them was because she knew she wasn't healthy enough to do that at this moment. And from the sound of it, she'd need to do plenty of feeding to be able to make it to the next closest population center. The train could potentially work, but she didn't know how to operate it, and besides, with orders forbidding travel among the ponies it would make suspicion still rise. Death was becoming a very real possibility, which was extremely upsetting after having made it this far, and gotten what felt like so close to have a method for escape. As it was, she was just waiting and hoping her body would be ready to hunt in the night, and hoping that whoever came from Canterlot would be taking more time than needed.

The soldier stared at the half-full canteen, thinking upon the fluid in there. What it meant for ponies, and what that in turn meant for her as a changeling. From the beginning, she never doubted her species' worth. While the need to feed on the love and various positive emotions of other beings meant there was some reliance that could be seen as a parasitic lifestyle, it simply didn't seem that way to her kind – at least as a whole. She had heard about some irregulars who would start to lament what they were, but they would naturally be swiftly removed. After, even though changelings needed ponies to feed upon, there were carnivores that fed upon other creatures as well, and at least changelings weren't so barbaric as to do that. Ponies themselves fed on water and plants, relying on other things to live. And the plants themselves fed on the earth, water, and sun. In the end, even the soldier supposed she relied on the same things as the ponies, however indirectly. Still, at least she didn't need to destroy anything in the process when it came to her end. She would fight to the bitter end for the hive that provided for her, but there was nothing wrong with that.

Finally picking up the canteen, the soldier took a few more chugs to at least provide a little bit more to the illusion that she was doing something to be what these ponies thought was healthier. Wait for nightfall. Feed. Find a map. Get out. Hope she didn't die at any intervening point.

And then what?

It was an annoying question, but one the soldier knew had merit to address. She didn't have much information, but she knew she would be encountering still more trouble if she kept going from situation to situation hanging by the skin of her teeth. The soldier didn't like it, but she realized she would have to indulge that inner coordinator she'd made up for herself more. At least, that's how it seemed, but would that also be bad in the even longer term? The soldier rolled over in her bed, eyes staring through the wall. Learning to coordinate and plan around herself would likely help her survive her journey, but what would happen when she returned back to the original colony? If she stopped specializing as simply a soldier, would they accept her? Would she be too... irregular... to function within? She had been acting as a soldier, an infiltrator, a coordinator – not very well she realized, but she had been attempting to adapt. She had certainly gone beyond her previous bounds. And she had been doing this all alone. The soldier twitched a little as she found her limbs pulling in closer. She had been alone ever since she landed in the desert, cut off entirely from all other changelings. Her entire life, she had never been so entirely and utterly isolated from the hive. There had always been a fellow solider when on patrol. There had always been an infiltrator to check with when working in high risk pony-filled environments. Someone she could communicate with, check with, compare her performance with, or gain an opinion from. Here? Just ponies. The beings she needed to feed on and disguise herself from. The only real moment of comfort she had was that first meeting and even that had carried several risks. Everything else... it was unbearable. She had to keep weighing the risks from the big to the small. She couldn't just focus on combat effectiveness. At least that she knew with no doubts. And yet here, even combat wasn't certain. Fighting last night meant that she paid the risk of getting herself exposed. Even if she had been trying her best to adapt, it would be meaningless if in the end she expired anyway. She wasn't meant to take on all these roles at once, no changeling was, except maybe the all-powerful queen. And even the queen had been dispatched. The soldier stared out the window, at the still full daylight outside. Just keep playing the waiting game. Just keep being stuck in her own thoughts as she waited for her stomach to settle or for night to fall.

Looking down at the few books on her table, it made the soldier think of that disconnect between her and the ponies. She could speak with them, but this communication of markings was beyond her. The only changelings she knew of who could interpret these were those who needed to, infiltrators and leaders. Flopping open the first book she had tried, she stared intensely at the text, wondering if maybe there was just some instinctual part to the text that she did not get. Nothing came though. She couldn't read this – she didn't belong in this place, didn't belong in this pseudo-infiltration role she'd been forced to take. She needed her home, needed the place where she fit in, did not need to question the odds.

“Dusty?”

The soldier looked up from her thoughts, meeting the eyes of the doctor, Bones.

“Yes?” she answered simply. Unfortunately, she knew this wasn't something simple. She could sense his unease, his feelings of uncertainty and suspicion.

“May I talk to you for a moment?” he asked.

The soldier nodded. She would rather not need to talk, but there seemed no reasonable way to turn this down. She could feel how much he needed to do this, to ask, and halting his desire to talk would not make the situation any better. Oddly though, he did not go right into it after he sat down. Instead, he just seemed to stew for a moment in a maelstrom of emotion. Eventually though, he reached out and grasped at something.

“You're a soldier, right?” he asked, “I mean, Cameo's mentioned how you'll say explicitly that.”

“I am, yes,” she stated.

“Alright,” he muttered, a bit of that convection in his mind settling into place, “Are ya... are ya in active service? Or are you discharged?”

“I am – I should be in active service.”

“Why ain't you in a platoon or squad then? What happened?”

As always, the soldier reached into her thoughts to try and find an appropriate response that told enough truth to not seem obviously lying while not giving away the damning truth.

“I was in a battle with other soldiers. We thought we were winning. The enemy found a way to push us back. Literally sent us flying. I woke up in the desert.”

The soldier thought she noticed a figurative click in Bones' thoughts. Perhaps he was finally realizing what was happening, what she was. Oh well, it wasn't as though she had heavy chances of survival anyway.

“And since then, you've just been going... nowhere?” Bones asked.

“I've been trying to find my way home.”

“Where's your home?”

“I don't know.”

“Dusty, please don't lie to me,” Bones said, a mixture of frustration and desperation in his voice.

“I honestly don't know,” the soldier glanced down out the window, “Somewhere east. I don't know the specifics. I've just been trying to go by what little I remember, been trying to remember directions from memory.”

There was another uncomfortable silence as Bones again sat in his thoughts while the soldier thought on what time was left, realized how much her chances of survival had dwindled. She began to wonder if maybe the next town over, Dodge, had been figuratively shut down as well. Or if maybe they had been clued into the changelings already. The equestrian train system covered a lot, the soldier felt that she could remember that fact with certainty.

“Dusty, what are you a soldier of?”

He knew. There was no questioning it by now. If he didn't know for certainty, he had a strong suspicion at least, which ultimately made no difference because what was happening was clear. He was pulling back the layers and revealing her for her true nature.

“Dusty, tell me.”

“Those who provide for me,” she stated.

Bones' face crinkled. A shot of anger flowed up through the eye of those feelings.

“Stop jerking me around, and tell me exactly.”

No more hiding. No more point to it. Just drop the defenses. Bones' eyes went wide as a black, curved horn emerged from the soldier's forehead, and a spark of green, fire-like magic swept down from her head and washed over her being, exposing the truth underneath. A disturbing hybrid of insect and equine. Bones was immediately on his hooves and backing up into the wall at what was now looking at him, his body flush with the feelings of the fight-or-flight instinct.

“I am a soldier of the changeling hive,” she stated, her raspy, natural voice coming through.

“Y-you really – you really did feed on their souls then...” Bones said, terrified.

“No. Just their emotions. They were filled with hate, fear, and violence though. That is not good.”

It was strange... The soldier knew she was exposed. She was basically done. Her life was forfeit by this point. The feeling of fear coming off Bones was bitter and distasteful. And yet, she felt a strange sort of peace with herself.

“You... you feed on emotions then?” Bones asked. Why was curiosity starting to beocm a primary emotion.

“Yes. It was the nature, the goal of the battle. We were going to replace your sun princess and feed on your kind's love and adoration for her.”

There was the fear, the outrage winning out.

“Why – why would you do that?” Bones demanded.

“Because that is how we live. We spent so long in the shadows, tried to come out of hiding in what was meant to be a last, glorious conflict that guaranteed we would never be hungry again, instead of what could be garnered from infiltrating your kind in secret.”

Bones choked on his words as he tried to think of a response, any proper way to truly come to terms with what was happening.

“But then how – if you're here – you said you lost!”

“We did.”

“Then why are you telling me this?”

“Because there's no further point in deception.”

Bones hung in silence for a moment. He seemed to think he was close to the truth, so the soldier indulged him anyway.

“There was no plan for if we lost. I've been trying to go back to the original colony, the original point for the hive. I don't even know if anything awaits me there. And with the information you've given, I'm not certain if it's possible for me to even get that far,” she stated.

And now, it that mix of emotions, there came a stream of pity, which in itself seemed to be confusing the pony. There only seemed to be one certainty.

“You don't think you will live. Don't have anything to live for.”

“I am a soldier. I am meant to follow the will of the hive and defend it. I cannot live without it – not for long.”

“But, you,” Bones stumbled with his words, a mix of a feeling of satisfaction and frustration at what he was told, “Okay, so, you can die, yeah, fine. But what if – I don't know, what if you just kept doing what you are doing now? I mean you've been able to live here at least a short time, right? And no one has been hurt by your feeding, the headaches aside, obviously. And you can be a soldier for us, you've helped us out so far!”

“It's only a matter of time until your leaders send a representative here to inform all of you ponies of what happened. And even if that doesn't happen...”

The soldier stood up from her bed. Bones' muscles jumped as he held back the urge to bolt. As she took a few steps forward, she found herself awash in more of that bitter fear.

“That feeling you experience right now – it is what we inspire in you all. I bring you terror, fear, and hate. I cannot live on that. I am no infiltrator either. I would make a mistake. I already have made my mistakes.”

“So, but...”

“I need my hive. I need my orders, my direction, my purpose. I am meant to be a soldier within the hive – I am at my most efficient when I fulfill that role and am supported by the rest.”

Bones stopped for a moment. There was still confusion, but there seemed to almost be a strange sense of certainty within him.

“Fight for those who provide for you huh...” he mumbled, looking away for the barest of moments before looking back at the soldier, “You really don't value your life, do you?”

“I don't value it because it has none, objectively speaking,” the soldier stated.

“But – but Dusty...”

“My name isn't Dusty,”

Bones looked at her, a little confused for a moment before he realized it was another falsehood in the end.

“What is it?”

“I don't have a name.”

Once more, a look of confusion.

“You... you have to have a name. How else would you be called, or be referred to?”

“I do not. I am a soldier. That is all that I am called. That is all that I need to be called.”

Bones once again found himself wrangling that mix of emotions.

“So close, and yet so far...” he muttered, before shaking his head, “You – I don't know though, there's gotta be someway of helping you though, right? Maybe we can be your... hive. I mean, sure we'd all be scared as blazes of ya, but maybe we could get used to you, over time? We could explain to the ponies at Canterlot you ain't a bad egg, and, and – it'd work out somehow.”

The soldier took more steps forward, backing Bones into the corner. Her eyes were so close to his. With no discernible points of irises or pupils in her blue changeling eyes, it was particularly disturbing to the doctor.

“You are not my hive. None of you in this town are. You cannot hope to replace the connection that exists within it. The ability to communicate without words, the order, the certainty. The only way you can help me is to feed me. And right now, the bitter taste of your fear overrides everything else.”

“But...” Bones gritted his teeth, “There's more in me than that, I know you've done good by us...”

“And yet it doesn't take a precedent over the truth. Over what you feel now. That... pity... doesn't mean anything against the fear.”

The two's eyes remained locked for an intense moment as Bones mulled over what was being said while the soldier continued to observe his emotional state. The fear still remained. The sound of a bell outside broke Bone's attention just long enough for him to glance outside. The soldier did so as well, expecting to see someone peeking in, but there were none. There did appear to be some ponies running down the street from one direction.

“The alarm, but why...” Bones muttered.

The soldier broke off from her closeness to Bones to look out the window, further down the direction everyone was fleeing from. Six ponies were strolling down the street, three of which the soldier recognized from her first confrontation in this area.

“Scornful,” she stated simply, “And five others”

“But if he's already back up – Celestia, I knew he was tough but I'd hoped...”

“A decent combatant does not require a long time to recover,” the soldier remarked, her eyes not taken off of the earth pony in the distance.

“What, do you admire him?” Bones asked incredulously.

“No. He disrupts order. I do not like that,” the soldier noted.

“Hello, citizens of Apploosa!” Scornful shouted from down the street, “I hear you have a very interesting mare staying with you, one I might have a quarrel with.”

“What are you going to do?” Bones asked, looking between the direction of Scornful's voice and the soldier, who stared on at the outlaw from within the shade of the clinic.

“You got a lot of nerve comin' back, Scornful,” said a familiar voice.

The form of Silverstar stepped out into the street, staring down the offending ponies.

“You ain't laying a hoof on anyone in this town!” he shouted with determination, scuffing up some dirt underhoof before charging.

The soldier watched on as the sheriff fought valiantly, but numbers quickly won out, even as other town ponies joined in on the fight. They were quickly beat back, put in their figurative place.

“Can't you do anything to help us? Please...”

The soldier stared at Bones as he made his request.

“Why?”

“Because – because it's the right thing to do?” he pleaded, but looking at the changeling's impassive expression he knew the plea did not reach, “Just, look, I know we ain't your hive, but we could use your help, and if you feel like the only thing you're good for is fightin' just... Maybe ponies would accept you, maybe not, but...”

Bones finally took a step forward and, despite a fresh wash of fear, took a hold of her hoof and held it to his chest. Even as the bitter fear dripped away from his being, something else beat underneath it.

“I want you to belong, okay? I want you to stick around. I know I'm scared to death of you but I don't want you to leave. There's too many ponies – too many beings in general that have a hard time finding a place to fit in, thinking they got no where else to go, won't believe anyone who tells them otherwise. But if you can really tell what I'm thinking, then you know I'm damn well telling the truth!” Bones insisted, face contorted in a mixture of frustration and sorrow. And yet, he was telling the truth. Beneath that fear, there it laid, “So please, help...”

The sound of the melee outside drew the soldier's attention once more. Grunts, cries of pain, all of them a sign of the sacrifice the town ponies brave enough to fight. The soldier looked back at Bones. The feelings were genuine, all of them, from the negatives to the positive. Bones really did think and want for her to be here. And yet, the soldier, for all her desire to have something, to have that belonging, she couldn't shake that she could ever truly have what the doctor's heart promised.

The changeling leaned forward, crossing her horn with Bones'. She was going to die either way, so why was she indulging this? She began the feeding, taking on those positive emotions and watching as the unicorn fell to the ground. Her hunger was slightly abated. But to what end, if she was going to die eventually? The soldier started to walk out the door, applying her “Dusty” guise, and started to walk down the street, towards where the fight had gone on, the outlaws clearly on the side of victory as they kicked some of the downed ponies.

“Well, well, at long last she shows herself,” Scornful smirked.

Dusty stared at Scornful. Her chances of coming out of this alive were slim. She was already injured the previous night, and she had yet to make a recovery.

“I've been lookin' forward to this – no more tricks this time. Got you wide out in the open.”

Little tactical advantage. There were the buildings yes, but they ultimately led to possibilities for dead ends and being flanked. This would be a flat out question of how long she'd survive, not if she'd survive, all things considered.

“Any last words, missy?”

The soldier's eyes stopped looking around and assessing the situation, fixing back on Scornful. This would be her last battle, there was no question about it. Perhaps it was best, she would fall in the role she was meant to play. It would have perhaps been more satisfying to fall at Canterlot, but then fate it seemed wasn't feeling so kind.

“I am not 'missy'. I am a soldier,” she stated, “I fight because that is what I am best at. It is how I contribute. I defend those who seek to bring nourishment. I defend those who work to maintain the infrastructure of the hive. I defend them from outside threats, as well as from irregulars within.”

The illusion of Dusty faded, leaving bare the changeling to the outlaws. Looks that were either confused or amused by her choice of words became fear and repulsion.

“I will defend until I die.”

The green, flame-like magic of changelings flared up around the soldier. She no longer hung onto the objective of survival. What little energy was left in her body, mostly from Bones, burned throughout her. As the soldier leapt into battle, her muscles tensed harder, hitting with greater force and greater speed than ever before. Even as vital and hurt portions of her body were struck, she ignored the pain, her mind focused and tunneled only upon the fight, and going out the way she lived. The cries of pain form the outlaws were dull to her ears, only an indication that she had registered a hit in her addled mind. The energy, the magic suffusing through her body was starting to feel more and more like literal fire as she pushed herself beyond her limits. Literal steam started to rise out of her horn as glowed brilliantly, trying to output the excess heat and magic even as she breathed hard, her lungs attempted to do the same task. A small crack started to develop in the side of the hard horn. Everything started to become a blur. The heat even in the changeling's head was starting to work against her as she began to loose reason, lashing out at anything vaguely pony-shaped that came close. Eventually, it was as though the entire world just became a blur. The blur eventually faded into nothing. The tension and the dulled pain faded with the light.

The soldier no longer felt disconnected from her hive.