In Victory
In Victory
The sky was a deep orange, the clouds lazily drifting across this golden sea having been edged in gold and red. The trees below were a deep auburn in the light, each leaf doused in gold and hung out to dry on artfully natural branches of chocolate and emerald.
Below it all, watching time pass, was a Changeling.
He was an average Changeling, about fourteen hands at the shoulder, with pale blue eyes, paler pupils and a dark gray shell. He had three bands on each of his sides, and a dark blue shell on his back. From each shiny shoulder came a single, teal wing, a fragile limb built cell by single cell as he grew. He had two fangs on his muzzle, a short curved horn, and a pair of twisted little ears. His mane was gray and stiff, as was his tail. His legs were marked with fifteen holes in total, four on each of his front, five on one hind leg and two on the other. He was, all in all, quite normal.
And now, this unoriginal commonplace Changeling was unaware that he was dying.
"See that sky, my Queen?" He muttered to the open air. "That sky is a sky of victory. We won."
He coughed, a dark spatter of blood running down his chin. It went unnoticed, just a small mark of battle.
"Canterlot is ours, my Queen! We have a new land, a new place for us! That is what you wished, my Queen, and it has come to fruit!"
A loud cheer echoed down from the mountain kingdom to the Changeling far below. He laughed, letting out a few happy chirps along with the noise.
"Can you hear that, my Queen? The cheers we have evoked! The ponies are ripe for the picking, and we are the farmers! We won! We can all live and feast now, my Queen!"
Another cheer, this time absent the cries of the Changeling as he listened to the noise.
"Oh, even the ponies are cheering for us! Even our prisoners revel in your glory! Can you hear them, my Queen? Can you hear how happy they are? Of course you can, how silly of me. You're in front of them, telling them of their fate under your glorious hooves, siphoning the joy from their feeble hearts! You are feeding our populace with the very emotions they try to understand themselves! What a feast for such sore stomachs!"
There was silence again, broken by the occasional melodious chirps of birdsong and the shuffle of leaves in the warm breeze.
"Oh, my Queen, do you remember our last victory? What a glorious day that was?
"We had taken a small town, full of Griffons and Pegasi and Unicorns and Earth Ponies! What a glorious fight we had fought! They fell under our masses, they cried under our unfaltering hooves, they prayed for their Alicorn saviors! What a day! Oh, what a day!"
He coughed again, more blood sliding from his fangs and dripping onto his chest. In his excitement, he didn't notice.
"And then, after, do you remember what happened, my Queen? The sky itself reveled in our victory! The very sky! The clouds all broke apart under a wondrous show of color and sound! An epiphany of thunder and... and rainbows! It was... astounding. Do you remember, my Queen?"
He sighed, closing his eyes. When he opened them, a fuzzy black border edged the sky.
"Look, my Queen, I'm falling asleep! How strange!"
He laughed, watching as the black surged in with every breath.
"Hah... heh... huh..."
The laughing died down quickly as the Changeling found his breath didn't seem to enjoy leaving his lungs.
"M-my Queen, i think something is wrong. Why am I not by your side? Why am I not in our new kingdom?!"
He went to sit up, but his legs didn't respond, just hung limply from his hips. His back felt stiff, as if something had jarred his top from his bottom.
"Q-Queen? I... I think I'm dying."
There was no response from the sky.
"No. I'm not dying."
The birds fell silent, one by one.
"I'll be there soon, my Queen! You'll see me, waiting in our new ivory palace! Oh, how I will join in the festivities you have surely planned in celebration! You will see me, and you will tell me how well I did against those guards! Oh, we will rule forever!"
The sky's brilliance increased as the sun barely cleared the ridged mountains, the small pinpricks of stars still flickering on the other horizon. A deep ebony line faded behind the stars, the cloak of night surged back under the day that had yet to come.
"If I may be so bold, my Queen... can I see the sky rejoice again? We won. I'd love to see that brilliance again. It would make me really... really happy. Can you do that for me, my Queen? I know you can, my Queen, you are strong enough, no doubt, but could you, please?"
For a few moments, all was silent as the Changeling looked up to the sky. The cheering from the mountain returned tenfold, accompanied by a loud explosion and a riptide of color. The circular spectrum flew outwards in a frenzy of light, jumping wildly across the sunbeams and decimating clouds. The cheering was drowned out by the crackling brilliance, and the little Changeling cheered in their place.
The colors eventually faded, and the Changeling sighed happily. His breath hitched in his chest, and he relaxed against the tree behind him.
"Thank you, my Queen."
He raised a trembling hoof to his forehead in a weak salute.
"In victory."
And quietly, unnoticed, a single, little, commonplace spark of life went out, among the golden leaves and the blue sky, and the birds sang again, and the cheers from the kingdom echoed out into the forest, and a dark and dreary queen whispered a soft goodbye into the warm summer winds.
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Pretty nice one, have a thumb up, poor un-named changeling though.
Interesting.take. This is tragic. You did really well giving a nameless evil storm trooper into sense of pathos. I like it a lot.
Only problem I could find was that
Her should be he.
Aside from that beautiful.
I just empathized with a Changeling. Oh my Goddess. You fucking brilliant writer, you!!!
Changeling or not at least he went under thinking somebody cared.
Five likes? No views? WHAT IS THIS!?
Well, THAT was depressing...
I just sympathized with a Changeling. Huh, that's a first.
That was an amazing piece, IceofWaterflock. It deserves it's favorite.
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Why wouldn't you sympathize with them?
They just want food.
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I guess it's just the natural reflex that tells you "don't trust the bad guys," when they really wern't that bad at all. They just wanted to feed, like you said.
that made no sense at all
1286036
What EpicGuy said. Also, empathy and sympathy are (in my book) really different, so while I might sympathize with, say, the plight of a group of nomadic herders being pushed out of their homes, I lack the empathy to really connect with them on an emotional level due to my multiple levels of separation from their situation. HOWEVER, in this case, the author has managed to take my mind, squish it into a ball, and plant it as a non-acting entity within the mind of above Changeling while allowing me to feel all of its emotions. Hence: epic win.
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Thanks, everyone! Have a GIF of my daily life!
24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3a8jdNq1p1ru5991o3_500.gif
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Ha! Looks like mine too.
Wow. That was pretty sad.
You don't see many stories involving changelings as changelings, rather than changelings in disguise, so double awesome.
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Now i demand a kiss scene in this!!!
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Thanks. I got the idea few days ago because we watched 'All Quiet on the Western Front' in class. Somehow it connected with ponies.
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You just wait, I've got Discord already planned out and Luna done (Lost, published a while back)! I control the feels! *evil laughter*
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sad as hell, and I always root for the changelings. Darn you pony tyrants keeping all the food! We're starving over here!
Well, this was a incredibly well written concept. The character was believable, and the way you connected his demise to the rejoicing of the sky was overwhelmingly bittersweet.
One incredibly small nitpick. You say "fourteen hands at the shoulder". "Hands" isn't a great unit of measurement. (Brace for analytical BS.) A hand is about the size of a person's face. A person's head is about the size of 1 and maybe another third of a hand. That, multiplied by 8, comes out to around 11 hands for a person. This "normal" changeling is thus taller at the shoulder than any human (seeing as these body proportions fit almost all of humanity). I find this a bit unbelievable. Add to that the fact that the hand could belong to anyone, and it becomes a bit of a nuisance for analytical people such as me.
But then again, that little nitpick doesn't do anything to the overall point of the story. Well done.
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Hands are how veterinarians measure horses, is all.
I tend to use the term in ponydom here simply because it makes sense with equines. Sorry if it confused you, and thanks for the feedback!
1292416 Well, guess you learn something new every day. Terribly sorry.
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No problem
Poor Changeling. They are much more then hungry little feeding machines, they have their lives and loves too.
Nope. Don't want this feel. Damn these emotions!
Well... that was depressing.
A few grammatical mistakes here and there, but very good. To make a story feel complete in a thousand words, is akin to creating a beautiful painting.
At least he got his final wish...
This is hands down my favorite fic.
I thank you for writing it.
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You're very welcome. I'm glad you liked it.
3008050 C-curse you... Curse you! D-damn it all!
I'm really curious what about this story could be offensive.
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I applied it to all of my stories because I couldn't remember what I put in each of them and I just Don't Have The Time to reread all of them