Another day...

by chil304

learn to face your fears.

One of my favorite parts of the day is when you just wake up. That feeling of blurry-headed disorientation... It helps me. For a few precious seconds i'm not a murderer, i'm not an outcast and i'm definitely not sleeping in a Manehattan dumpster. Then life kicks back in and I remember where I am, what happened yesterday and that i'm still trash.

It's like being offered some candy then being kicked in the face while eating it.

I groggily peel myself out of the dumpster and start to rub myself down, taking off any larger pieces of trash. The holes in my legs have gathered a small layer of slime that no matter what I try won't come off. Eventually I just leave it and hope nobody notices.

Not like anybody would care if they did notice anyway.

If it was any other day, I probably wouldn't have cared either but... Today is special. I need to look like more than homeless trash, I need to look more presentable. See, sometimes a pony will offer me some work, in turn for a hopelessly small amount of bits. Prostitution, store robberies, drug smuggling... That sort of stuff. They say i'm perfect for this sort of work as i'm not registered on any of the pony's systems, can fly and use weak magic. Not that being told this makes me feel any better though...

Today I have a new job. A bigger job, and i'm being paid a good amount to do it. Enough bits that I want to not show up as a scruffy, homeless trash-bag.

I stretch my wings a few times to take out any wrinkles from sleeping on them and try picking up a few objects with my horn. My magic glowed around a few tin cans which I then throw into the Dumpster. Then, with great effort, I pick up a trash-bag for a few seconds before dropping it back into the dumpster because of the weight. My magic is better than expected today, which I guess is good.

I watch the street from the alleyway, and find myself astonished at how much is going on. Ponies, carriages, street performers... It's huge and bustling and surprisingly calming to watch.

Back in the hive I had a telescope. I would watch nearby towns for hours, just wondering about what the ponies were doing and with who. Why they were going into the shops. What was on their minds... It always fascinated me, ponies. The way their society works so flawlessly... how they are so different yet so similar. It helped me, and still does help me, forget about myself by just studying the ponies. Sometimes mom would tell me stories - stories of how our great queen was going to take Canterlot, how she had a plan and an army and was going to ensure our starving hive could eat more than the scraps of emotion from the local wildlife.

How everything was going to get better.

While in the hive, I had a small group of friends. It wasn't the biggest group, I wasn't the most popular kid ever and we occasionally had fall-outs but... We still stuck together. Names have faded into the dusts of time, and faces have blurred into non-existence but memories still remain. Memories of the time I forgot to open my wings during flight training, when my friend got bit on the nose by a baby changeling during a field-trip to the birth chamber, memories of going to love shops and staring longingly at the little jars for ages so that when dad got back and I could guilt him into getting me one...

The love-shop owner, my friends, my dad... All went into the invasion. There were... So many good, noble, well-meaning changelings in that invasion. I never went to Canterlot personally, as I was kicked out, which is something that upset me greatly at the time. I wanted to be fighting with my friends and family. Now all I want is too see them again. See what the loss did to them. Sometimes the newspapers will put a story on it, with headlines like "mare finds dead changeling in bathroom!" or "Changeling remnants found in bakery!".

A snot-green stallion walks into the alleyway, something that instantly wakes me from my inner-thoughts. "You the changeling ruby hired?"

I nod my head and see a smile creep across the stallion's face. A small bag of bits is thrown towards me. "25% up-front, like you said. rest'll be given after the job. If it's not done by tonight, don't expect to wake up tomorrow."

"So... we going to do a briefing or..."

"I thought you'd never ask."