Winds of Change

by theOwtcast

House of Horrors

We’d barely turned around the corner of this first passage when Trixie, walking just behind me, suddenly let out a gasp.

“What is that?” she said, voice quivering, pointing at the object ahead of us.

“Looks like another cocoon, only smaller than the ones in that cavern,” Starlight answered before I could, pushing past me and squinting at it. “There’s a vampire fruit bat inside. Changelings feed on vampire bats too?”

“This is a lamp,” I explained.

The three stared at me blankly.

“Can’t you see it’s glowing? Those other cocoons were glowing too. Didn’t any of you notice?”

“Now that you mention it, yes, though I didn’t think any of it,” Starlight said. “So?”

“The changeling slime used in cocoons is a good conduit for love energy, among other things it does, and the glow is a side-effect of love energy flowing through it. A little bit of energy gets used up to produce that glow, but only a negligible amount in the length of time a pony or other creature usually spends in the cocoon before getting completely drained at… uh… mealtimes.” The three winced at the expression. “Animals have far less love energy than ponies, though still enough to get the slime to glow. Most animals used in lamps get caught in beginner-level drills that all nymphs go through.”

“So you don’t eat them?” Trixie had a glint of hope in her eyes.

“We could in a pinch, but they don’t give much nourishment, and anyway feeding on animals is considered a disgrace to changelings because,” I continued in a mocking gruff voice, “a true changeling warrior only feeds on prey that had put up an admirable fight before getting caught, or one that would have resisted admirably if it hadn’t been caught by surprise. Also, because it’s seen as humiliating, forcing a drone to feed on animals rather than on ponies or other creatues normally used as a food source is sometimes done as part of the punishment for minor offences.”

“Whatever happens, we don’t - and I mean don’t - show this to Fluttershy!” Discord said gravely. “She’d be devastated!”

“Haven’t you guys heard of normal lamps?” Trixie asked. “You know, like the ones ponies use?”

“We have, but changelings are taught since early age to despise anything non-changeling in origin and only use such things while on infiltration missions in order to maintain cover. And sometimes in training, but only in order to familiarize themselves with such objects for the sake of cover credibility.”

“I don’t suppose the animals would be in any better condition than those cocooned ponies from earlier if we let them out?” Starlight asked.

“They wouldn’t, plus it would most definitely give us away. I used to free them when I was younger, but not only were the animals too weak to run away afterwards, the other changelings quickly caught on and were punishing me every time I broke a lamp, even a couple of times when a lamp was found broken and I’d had nothing to do with it, because they would just assume it had been me. I was the only one who ever did that, and I’m sure at least some of them haven’t forgotten! We might get away with releasing one or two, but if they find a trail of broken lamps again, they’d know immediately that I’ve returned! Whether or not they realize that I’ve brought friends with me, there’s no need to put them on alert to look for a wanted traitor!”

“Okay, we’ll leave them as they are,” Starlight agreed.

“Any other gruesome things you forgot to mention?” Trixie asked.

“No, this pretty much covers it, unless they invented something new while I was away,” I said. “Unless I need to mention that ponies and vampire bats won’t be the only cocooned creatures we’ll come across?”

“I could have guessed that,” she frowned.

We moved on. Discord lingered a moment longer, looking despondently at the trapped bat. I heard him whisper, “I wonder if you used to live in Ponyville…”

---

Before long, we passed by a number of other lamps, each causing shudders and soft gasps of my companions. I wished I could respond with the same outrage as they had at the sight of the poor creatures! There had been a time when I could, a time when I’d cried hidden in my sleeping burrow over their sad fate, a time when I would hear their pleading, desperate voices in my dreams, begging to be saved; but years of brainwashing and punishment had numbed my feelings, and though my heart had never fully stopped aching for the little animals, I’d learned to suppress my tears and tune out their voices. But living with ponies had quenched that discipline, and the long-stifled desire was beginning to stir. It wasn’t fully awake yet, fortunately for the task we were facing, or I would have given in to it; but as I forced myself to walk past the umpteenth lamp and cocoon, it gave me solace to know that the desire to free them still existed in me… that I hadn’t become a heartless monster.

Over the hours, through capable guidance or sheer luck, more likely the latter, we made considerable progress, having passed through a number of passages and corridors and climbed up enough levels to have almost certainly reached the above-ground portion of the hive without running into patrols, except on a few occasions where we’d dodged them easily enough. We talked little; even my friends had apparently become accustomed to the lamps and prey cocoons they’d found so unsettling at first. Hardly surprising, really; we must have come across nearly every creature in existence at some point, helpless in a glowing blob of changeling slime. I didn’t think they’d actually stopped caring; they must have simply learned to suppress their disgust and anguish.

My heart, however, was racing in another direction: the silenced urge to free the helpless animals was stirring more vividly by the minute, struggling to break through the inhibitions that had kept it on a leash for so long. Soon it would dig itself out of the dark abyss it had been thrust into and break to the surface!

One last restraint would have to be enough to keep it from bursting out in all its devastating glory: for the sake of all of my friends, I couldn’t leave a trail that would announce my return to the hive!

I forced my mind to ignore the lamps and cocoons and the living creatures inside them, and instead to focus on what would happen if the patrolling guards came to realize I was here. Surely I hadn’t been forgiven; they would do their best to hunt me down! And this time, they would succeed! I may have dodged them in Equestria’s forests, but they hadn’t been nearly as numerous there as they would be here! I may have grown up in the hive, I may have learned its ways, but I’d been absent too long to count on that to help me! I was just one little changeling; how could I ever hope to stand up to the entire hive in all its overwhelming, unwavering fierceness?

And what if they captured my friends?

I’d gotten myself so worked up that I stopped paying attention to where I was going. I tripped over a bulge in the uneven floor and fell face-first onto the ground. Buzzing my wings might have prevented that, but Starlight and Trixie had been walking so close behind me that they hadn’t stopped in time, and ended up both falling over me in a heap.

“Sorry!” I gasped.

“Yeah, we’re sorry too,” Starlight answered for both of them, already getting up. As she did so, her saddlebag got caught on Trixie’s, and she was left in an awkward half-standing, half-crouching position.

“Darn things!” she groaned, struggling to untangle herself. “This would be a lot easier with a horn!”

“Here, let me help,” Discord offered. Having walked a little further behind them, he’d just barely been spared of the ridiculous group fall.

He took their saddlebags off their backs quite easily, and Starlight stood up to normal position, only a little too quickly. By doing so, she kicked the saddlebags out of Discord’s grip and they fell onto the ground. Trixie’s bag opened in the process and a couple of firecracker spheres rolled out.

We all saw what was about to happen, but not even Discord, standing closest to them, was quick enough to stop the spheres from rolling over the edge of the nearby vertical shaft.

A few breathless moments later, they sounded an elaborate explosion worthy of any royal fireworks show in Canterlot.

An explosion followed by echoes of shouted commands and buzzing of countless changelings’ wings.

Comments

[harts fire]

shit cover blown.

[Black--Soul]

Shit happens... Now things get difficult...

[Yoshifan30]

“Whatever happens, we don’t - and I mean don’t - show this to Fluttershy!” Discord said gravely. “She’d be devastated!”

Yeah fluttershy will cry her eyes out if she heard about this

[Yoshifan30]

An explosion followed by echoes of shouted commands and buzzing of countless changelings’ wings.

Oops Looks like our cover is been blown 😰

[Yoshifan30]

Boy that is a lot of information about what they do with those creatures and it's pretty disturbing and very scary And what I said before flutter shy will have a nervous breakdown But now they have another problem thanks to trixie fireworks Now that the changeling knows we are here