Chrysalis Visits The Hague

by Dan The Man

XXXI. A Ruse

XXXI
A Ruse

She had blacked out again.
When she came to, she was back on the ground, sticky all over once again, in yet another alien cavern. Rolling over and glancing up, she looked at her assailant as he stood above her, practically enveloped the dim oppressing darkness.

But she recognised that it was the familiar likeness of Golden Dirk, trembling.
He was carving his hooves into the Changeling muck next to her knees, aggressively.

“What was the idea just now, huh?!” he yelped, pointing a forlorn hoof at their makeshift passageway. “What was that gonna be?”

Edith had not yet cleared her predatory state of mind.

Holding onto the two or three arrows she had left, she lunged up and tackled the changeling in disguise.

He was a little lighter than her - light enough to be swept up by her momentum and forcibly pinned into the next wall.

As he tried to push back and get her off of him, Edith brought her arrows forward and jammed them into his throat.

“Stop,” she said in her typical monotone voice.

Golden Dirk could merely gasp as the cold sharp tips dug into his neck’s flesh, a few grains of pressure short of piercing his elastic, leathery changeling skin.

A moment of silence ensued.

“M… Ma’am...” he muttered and glanced up into Edith’s combative eyes with his own fake equine ones. “It’s me. It’s still me. Sergeant Dirk…”

She remained as she was.

“Look...” he whispered, and intensified his stare at hers.

An involuntary, invasive chill flowed all over her.

“Look at me. You will lower the blade… And then sit down with me. Alright?”

And out of seemingly nowhere, she felt compulsion to do just that. He mind clouded up, her head promptly drifting off to somewhere. Like someone trapped in a doze, she could see herself backing off and peacefully slipping back onto the ground before the changeling.
But that feeling only lasted so long.

When she came to, forcing her attention back towards the task subduing the creature at hand, she found that she was now pushing into his neck even harder. She had pierced his flesh.
Thick greyish blood was already oozing out of the wound and onto her hand...

“Obey me... Please...” he whimpered, his hooves weakly clambering at her shirt.

“What… what did you just try to do?” she slurred.

“I’m sorry...” he wheezed, “I didn’t mean to! Please... let's talk...”

She shook her head to clear her head of the foreign compulsions.
But talk they would, alright.
“When you told us there were files to be found in the Everfree archives...” she whispered, memories and information whirling up inside her skull, “You were lyingh, weren’t you?”

“What...” he mumbled, obviously trying to stave off the pain, “What, no, no. I was being honest with you...”

“You said there was a fire,” she continued, albeit still conscious of the - hopefully yet sleeping - creatures next door.

“There was! I barely made it out with all of my hair… I don’t know how you made it out of there...”

“You don’t have hair...” she reminded him. “You’re not a pony. You’re one of them. You’re a change-”

“I swear to you...” he interrupted her, “This probably looks bad... like, really really bad... But this’s got to be the stupidest… stupidest coincidence… We weren't supposed to end up inside some changeling hive.”
He gulped. “I am not who you think I am...”

“I thought you were a Royal Ghuard, for one thing.”

“I am a Royal Guard...” he protested, as much as the arrow tips let him. “I served my Princess for almost ten years...”

“You’re a traitor.”

“A deserter…” he corrected her, “Just a deserter...”

“Why desert now?”

“I… I...”

“Why lead us to that ruin?”

“You know why! I was doing you a… a good turn! We had a deal, remember?”

“What was in it for you then?”

“You… you were supposed to help me! I want asylum!”

“Who set the fire?”

“Not me! Sweet Celestia!” he coughed, before reminding himself where he was and quieting down again. “I just wanted you to help me out! Think! Why should I try burning you all?!”

Edith applied the pressure. Golden Dirk applied his lachrymal ducts.

“I only want to get out alive!” he wailed, ditching more and more of his composure, “I wanna live! Is that too much of a crime now?!”

The moments he spent pinned in this uncomfortable position were visibly taking a toll on him. His hind legs, the only things that were keeping him upright and his neck off the blade, began to shiver more and more erratically.

Edith took the hint for what it was. The creature was all but sapped of its endurance.

“Yours won’t be first ghullet I slit. If you do something stupid, I will bleed you dry where you stand. Chlear?

“C-crystal. Thank you, Ma’am. Thank you!” he cried as she retracted the arrow.

He slumped onto the floor like a sack of rice, his armour clattering as he crumbled.

Menacingly, Edith cornered him as he lay, and cleaned her arrowheads on her shirt,
“And what was that just now?” she inquired as she pointed in the previous room’s direction, “You jumped me.”

“Just… I tried to get you to move on!” he stuttered, “I don’t know what you were doing all of a sudden. You could have doomed both of us!”

Defensively, she pointed towards the dormitory, “You know one of them saw us, right? Someone wokhe up and saw us.”

“Yeah...” he confirmed, “A… pupa… a kid.”

“So?”

Golden Dirk held his breath.

“You said you don’t know these changelings,” Edith reminded him.

“I don’t! But...”
His stare was almost searching as he glanced up at her, as though he was trying to find the right words to get his meaning across, “A kid.”

Edith readied her impromptu dagger once more as the realisation dawned on her.
“Chances are it’s waking up the rest of them now.”

“She,” Golden Dirk corrected her. “I can tell that kind of thing.”

Edith’s cold brown eyes pierced him more the arrowtips could have.
“What the hell are you, anyway?”

“Not… like you, apparently,” he stuttered, his tone somewhat accusingly.

“Meaningh?”

He snorted bitterly and tried to get back on his feet.
“How far do you think we would’ve come once they realised we k- killed one of their their young? They’re definitely wouldn’t let us l-… live then.” he mumbled, then coughed, catching some drops of his superficial throat gash.

That reminded Edith.
She peered around the new room.

“Can I… stand up now?” he asked as he slowly crawled away from the wall. “I… I’m ready to admit it’s more or less my fault we’re here to begin with. Not intentionally, mind you.”

Edith gave him an oppressive glare as she toyed with her arrowheads.
He was right. They were already in the lion’s den. Whether or not he had anything to do with her - and perhaps the others’ - fate, there was precious little she could do to help it.

“You and I want leave this place, right? Together? We... gotta trust each other for that. I might be asking too much, but… neither of us will get anywhere on our own.”

Edith had to admit she began to lose interest in the downed changeling.
Straying deeper into the mostly bare cavity, Edith did notice some upright tables standing around. Low, equine tables. Probably loot and plunder like all the other stuff.

Golden Dirk coughed as he followed her glance, probably trying desperately to prove himself useful in some way, “Is that what I think it is?”
Weakly, he rolled himself upright and rose back on all fours, before cantering to one of the closer ones.
Edith let him, though she did not leave him out of her sight.

“I… I think we might have a window to the outside world.” He giggled as he lifted himself onto one desk. “Look at that!”

Edith approached the table cautiously. She found four jet-black, hairbrush-sized oval stones lying there, arranged in a crude rectangle formation of sorts.

“Do you know what this is?!” Dirk asked, invigorated by a new wave of hope. “We used to have one of those, back in the day! Dad used to show me how it worked all the time! We- we had to dump ours at some point, but I got the hang of it back then!”

“What?”

He looked at her and wiped at his wound.
“You- you guys have a thing like that too, don’t you?”
He began to rearrange the rock-like excitedly. “It just takes… a little bit of magic. Animative magic. Or Automotive. Maybe.”

“Is it… a chommunichation device?” she guessed.

He nodded avidly.
“And we could use it to call somepony to help! It might just be our ticket out of here.”

She eyed him coldly.
“Anyone in mind?”

“Somepony! Anypony! I… I suppose I can start worrying about a Canterlot cell when I’m done worrying about… Chrysalis’ caverns.”

He certainly seemed to sing a different tune now.

He lit his horn. “Whatever it is… you either get it to work now or we get going again.”
Only now Edith realised his magic shone in an unmistakably changeling hue of green.

A green flame seemingly jumped onto one of the rocks and began bouncing its merry way clockwise across each of the rocks.

A sudden muffled rumble resonated through the cave around the two.

Golden Dirk flinched in panic.
“Uh, it… Hay, I think it might take a moment to catch the magic.” He threw her a glance and waved her over. “Ma’am, lend me a hoof here.”

She crossed her arms warily.

“Please. In a moment, it’s gonna get very bright, but… I don’t know how to put this… but we might be about to see somepony who’s somewhere else, inside a puff of magic.”

“You mean likhe... on a schreen? Likhe video chat?”

He hesitated in confusion, “Uh… I don’t know... but sure, yeah.”

“Who will answer us?”

“Whoever’s got another one of these. Changeling, pony, human... They probably won’t be too excited to see me… for any number of reasons. So… could you take over the talking?”

"you must be jokhing."

He shook his head, hesitant.

“Once we are out of here, you will have a thingh or two to exhplain.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

There was an ominous echo sounds of clip-clopping hooves. Neither of them could tell whether it was the machine making the noise or somepony somewhere in their den.

Still clutching her dagger, Edith stepped in front of the four stones.

A force field began to gather right above the stones. It swelled like a flickering balloon, bigger and brighter, lighter and larger, until it was the size of a full-length mirror.
The flicker of the energy faintly reminded her of an unadjusted television set. Was it maybe reliant on the same kind of signal?

“Sergeant?” she asked, staring intently at the screen.

No reply.

She clutched her dagger harder and waited patiently.

And lo and behold, after what seemed to be an eternity of bright white and green sparks, a sudden image ‘booted up’ in front of her.
It was not one she had expected.

She was gawking into a large, spacious, well-lit room. It was white, bright and modern.
Again, her first thought was that she was just imagining. It was bizarre.

People - humans, regular humans just like herself! - sat on rows of desks - an entire audience of forty or so - and looked at her. They were all wearing tenue de ville attire. Slacks, skirts, ties, suits, high heels and leather brogues.

This audience needed a couple of moments to realise that Edith was there. Focusing their eyes and tilting their heads, they seemed to acknowledge her presence with startled looks.
One even pointed at her, curiously, and turned to his neighbours.

“Hello?” Edith stuttered.

But then the image was crushed by darkness.
As fast as the window to the civilised world had appeared, it had once again gone - and taken that audience of people right with it.

Edith still sat there for a few moments as her glared eyes realised that she was once again looking at black. The bright white image had completely dazzled her, blinding her to the rest of the room.

“Sergeant! What just happened? What did I see?” she asked, her voice booming louder than she intended.
The only answer she got was her own echo booming back at her.

She turned, her hands outstretched, as she tried to blink the light away. But the changeling that had stood next to her just a moment before had gone away.

Something was going wrong.

Trying to retrace her steps, she clutched the table and led herself around the room.

“I am armed!” she grumbled into the dark, unable to think of something better to say.

“That is okay,” a voice suddenly thundered past. It was deep and unfamiliar.
She struck her arrowtips around her in retort.

“Hello!”

She realised the cavern sloped around yet another corner.
She could only see that because from behind that corner a light shone.

“Hello! You have nothing to be scared of,” the booming voice declared. “Everything’s under control.”

“I don’t thinkh so,” she retorted, advancing upon the light. “Who is this? Identify yourself.”

“Why don’t you come into the light and see for yourself?” the voice asked her. It sounded rather matter-of-fact and tranquil, considering their gloomy environs. “The mystery shall be lifted,” it quipped.

She stopped.
“How about you chome here?”

The voice sighed.
“I know you might feel a little threatened right now. Take your time.”

She realised that, again, she didn’t have many options open.

Putting one foot in front of the other, she tiptoed her way around the curve. The light shimmered off the richly secrete-coated walls.

The path led her into an annex, a separate room that was lit by a solitary light source. Stale, white, steady.
Electric light.

Edith passed through a door-sized opening, and promptly found herself on hard, dry and cold ground.
She was standing on a rubber mat.

She looked back up. Instead of changeling gunk, these walls were hung with sheets of linen, like makeshift tapestries or curtains hiding the bare rock and limestone away.

In the middle of everything stood a generously sized camping table.
On the chair lay an eclectic assortment of files, books, folders, pens, a mechanic’s level and a battery-driven camping lantern for a light source.
Behind the table stood a director’s chair. And on that director’s chair, there sat a relatively spry young man, with a fuzzy head of blond hair, in an anthracite two-piece suit, a garish striped tie, and a little flag button on his lapel.
He seemed familiar, somehow.

Behind the man hung a United Nations flag on a pole. And next to the pole, behind the man’s right, stood Sergeant Golden Dirk at attention like a stoic sentry.

From a certain point of view, it all looked very professional and official.

With a calm smile, the man in the suit spread his arms at her in greeting as soon as she was done with taking in the room.
“Well, Ma’am? Surprised?”

Edith held her breath.

“Probably understandable, given the circumstances. But you can put those… arrows... away now. No need to make each other nervous.”

She warily folded her arrow-clutching hands behind her back.

“You’ve been through quite a voyage. But I’m glad you made it back in one piece.”
He reached out and tapped a small stack of antiquated, ash-smeared books on his makeshift desk. “And you can’t argue with the results.”

“Who are you?” she asked, unperturbed.

He grinned.
“Commander Kolya. At your service.”

“Are you… with the UN?”

“Well no, I’m actually a changeling in disguise, trying to confuse you.”

“I see.”

Edith thought about piercing him with an inquisitive gaze, just to make sure that really was joking, but she thought better of it.
Instead, she peered over to Golden Dirk, who was vacantly staring into the room from his post. He seemed quite distracted from the fact that she had held her makeshift dagger to his head not ten minutes ago.

“I’m afraid I might owe you an explanation.” Commander Kolya smiled and directed his gaze to Golden Dirk. “Am I wrong, Sergeant?”

Dirk shook his head. “No, sir,” he said, his voice sounding hollow and slightly unsure. “Ma’am will be happy to know that this all was just a- a ruse.”

“Yes. When was the last time you two had something to eat or drink?”
Smiling, he reached under his desk and picked up an old-fashioned glass. Swirling within was a little bit of transparent liquid.
“Here. Something to moisten your gullet.”

“What... is it?” she asked.

“Just what it looks like.” he answered cheekily. Then he produced a dark-brown, rich slice of wholemeal bread. “And a little snack too. I’m sorry if I can’t offer you something more opulent. I just came from brunch in Canterlot myself.”

Edith had to confess to herself that the slice made her mouth water a little - as if ages of starvation were slowly catching up with her.

But when she saw the Commander lay the slice of bread right on top of the glass like a lid before sliding it over to her, her appetite promptly evaporated into thin air.

“Is everything okay, Ma’am?” the Commander asked. “Here, help yourself.”

Edith stared at the the glass of spirit and the slice of bread with almost hypnotised concentration.

“Come on, Ma’am. It’s on the house,” he declared jokingly. “Once we get back to Canterlot HQ, we can pick you up a caviar or something. But before we move, I just need to debrief you and quiz you on a couple of things. The Equestrians, mainly.”

“Right...” she mumbled, not letting her ‘snack’ out of her eyes. “Shoot.”

“Alright then.”
He picked up a pen. “Tell me, where did your unit come from? Canterlot?”

“Yes. We were chonduchting a search.”

He jotted it down. His handwriting was abysmal to the point of looking a little deranged.
“So you were. Did the Equestrians offer you any military escort?”

“We... were chountingh on the facht that they weren’t aware of the search.”

He raised his eyebrows on surprise. “I see. And what about the Sergeant over there?”
He glanced over to Golden Dirk, whose eyes had visibly shrunk into his otherwise unmoving demeanour.

“He was the who led us here,” she answered with a hint of of reproach, “Though why, I chan’t say. You should askh him yourself.”

She noticed Golden Dirk shaking his head nervously, as though to try and convey that she should stop right there.

She ignored him.
“Where are Mister Abel and the others?”

He looked up.
“Who now?”

“...My chompanions.”

“Oh.” He wrote it down.
“They went ahead. You will meet up them in Canterlot. Now...”
He harrumphed, “I suppose the Equestrians didn’t tell you a lot about their… invasion of the Everfree, did they? Or where the changelings they were looking for were?”

She sniffed, slightly put off.
“Very little. Though I suppose they didn’t know that they chould find them all tuckhed in here.”

The Commander cocked his head.
“I beg your pardon?

Edith pointed behind herself.
“You know there are almost two hundred changelings sleeping nexht door, right?”

“Oh… sure.” he laughed and breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief to give himself time, “So you’ve… already wandered into our detainment camp, I see.”

“Detainment champ.”
Edith needed a moment to comprehend the answer. “Oh, that exhplains everythingh.”

“They… didn’t give you any trouble, did they?”

She shook her head, not even bothering to dignify Golden Dirk with another aside glance.
“I suppose you finally found your witnesses for the trial then.”

“Trial,” the Commander pouted, more than a bit smugly, “Yeah. We found our witnesses for all the trials, alright.”
Apparently satisfied with her answers, he tapped the books again, “Now... are those the volumes you… well, we were lookhing for?”

She eyed the books briefly. The gears in her mind turned and ground. But nothing of any use came out.
What were these books he was holding in his hands, anyway?

“I don’t know what these are supposed to be.”

He smiled disarmingly.
“Oh, you must know. You saved them from that blaze. At least, they were on you when we retrieved you.”

“Right...”
Not only did she escape the Chancery as it caught fire, but she had evacuated these books, apparently.
Why could she remember none of it?

“What’s in them, Ma’am?”

“I don’t know. Evidence… of some sort.” she shrugged and peered over to Golden Dirk, who had begun to tremble nervously. “Perhaps pertaining to Chrysalis. Likhe I said, you should askh him.”

He seemed surprised. “Evidence? Chrysalis, no less?” he grinned, “You know… Ma’am... If these books really are what I think they are, then it will work miracles for the cross-cultural understanding of our world.”

“That’s… ghood.”

“And - no need to mince words here - you’d be in for a medal!”

She looked up.
“A medal. Really?”

He nodded and winked.
“And a promotion. United Nations take care of their own.”

What a strange thing to hear. After everything that had happened in the last couple of days.
“I’m not in the UN. I never was. I’m with the ICMP. At least I still thinkh I am.”

“Ah… same difference. Once we return you to Canterlot, you will finally get to go home to your family.”

“To Bosnia?”

He nodded with a proud pout.
“To Bosnia. I’d image they’ll be dying to give you a proper hero’s welcome.”

“Yeah… I suppose they are...” she confirmed as she finally decided to pick up her drink and her bread. “At least, if they weren’t all dead already.”

The Commander’s smile deflated.
“I am sorry, I had no idea!”

“No, you didn’t,” she agreed and led the substance to her lips.
She was glad to savour the all-too familiar taste of vodka, with a little hint of both honey and pepper.
A hell of a brunch that this Commander had on hand.
Satisfied, she followed up with a bite of bread. It was pretty dry already, but edible all the same.

“Regardless, Ma’am...” the Commander sighed, “You will get your hero’s welcome.”

Edith was tired, and she was sore.
When she placed the glass back on the table. Her movement was rough, and the sound was unduly loud, and the recoil made the desk shudder. It certainly made the Commander flinch.
“Yeah, that won’t be necessary.” she declared.

“Uh… no need to be modest now.”

“I’m not ghoing home,” she countered. “I have... unfinished business here in this sechtor.”

He raised his eyebrows.
“Oh? Well then...”

“As a matter of facht, the chaptain and I were about to find our way out.” She raised her chin authoritatively. “I would likhe my shoes back and a pointer to the exhit please, Chommander.”

She could see Golden Dirk grimacing at her, with deathly fear on his face. He mouthed something urgent, but she couldn’t make sense of his lip movements.

The Commander also seemed rumbled. Uncomfortably, he got up from his chair.
“Well… we’ll all leave together, shouldn’t we? As was the plan. I was tasked with escorting you back to Canterlot.”

Edith gripped her spears tighter.
“Did you hear what I just said, Chommander?”

“Please, Ma’am… We have a pretty bad storm outside and...”
He ambled up to her, hiding something behind his back theatrically. Edith noticed a conspicuous limp.
She took a step back as the Commander revealed he was clutching something small, round and golden-gleaming.
“Puff out your chest, Ma’am.”

She hummed in surprise. It did seem a little absurd.
“Really now?”

“I was gonna wait until we got back, but… I may call you Ma’am, can’t I?”

She shrugged.

He smiled courteously.
“Mammy, perhaps? Something more familiar.”

She hesitated. She did not expect this one.
“Exchuse me?”

“Ahem… Ma’am it is, then!” the Commander flinched and corrected herself. “Very well. For your… exemplary conduct and display of extraordinary courage, it is my honour to award to you, in the name of His Majesty the King…”

“King?”
That was new.

“Yes, uh…” Commander Kolya shut his eyes in embarrassment, “If my head wasn’t attached! In the name of Her Majesty the Queen, I hereby award you the National Order of Merit.”

“Right. Thankhs.” Edith chuckled, “Which Qhueen would that be? Qhueen Chrysalis?”

The Commander eyed her with a questioning glance.
“I… Pardon?”

Edith grew even more staid.
“Which chountry am I from, Chommander?”

He opened his mouth, but amusingly, nothing came out at first.
“Ahem…Bosnia, of course.”

“And?” she cut him short, “Bosnia and...?”

Suddenly, the young man in the anthracite two-piece suit did not look so sure anymore.
“I don’t think I can follow, Ma’am.”

“What khind of UN official hands out national orders anyway? A ‘Chommander’ likhe yourself?”

“Ma’am… I... yes...” the Commander mumbled.

“My name is Edith Šarić.” She clarified, “‘Ma’am’ is not a name. You know that, right?”

“I must be…” The Commander said with a forced chuckle, and stepped back a little, “You seem a bit miffed… I thought that you’d be a bit happier, now that you’ve been rescued and… and…. Maybe I can offer you another snack or something, to lighten the mood.”

“What, another ghlass of Vodkha with bread on top?”

He hesitated again.
“Yeah, if you like...”

“Where did you pickh that up, anyway?”

The man gulped, clearly on the verge of panicking.

“Save it.” Edith cut him off and sighed, “Just… show me the thingh.”

Opening his fist in embarrassment, he revealed to her her award.

It was gold-rimmed, its centre was adorned by a stately diamond-encrusted bishop’s mitre, and it held an extensive inscription that ran in a circle around a star-like punched border.

Edith could barely hide her amusement.
It was a crown cork.

“Is something wrong?”
His voice sounded dry and austere by now.

Edith glanced at him. She tried to find some clue that would confirm her suspicions - some crack in his facade that would suggest his true nature.
The disguise, at least, was flawless.

She also noticed that he too was a little smaller than her.
She was sure she could take him. At least if he was as light on his feet as Golden Dirk was...

“I had doubts for a while now...” she sighed, “But they’re ghone now.”

The Commander clenched his eyes shut in very apparent frustration.
“Doubts, huh? Alright...” he muttered, his mouth developing an irritated tinge, a slow vibrating noise starting to form the depths of his throat as the pressure mounted, “Alright then. I wanted to be nice about it, you know. I wanted to ease you in. Go light on you. But... enough of that. ”

She heard what he said. She knew what he was getting at. There was no mistake about it now, all bets were off.

But for the love of it, she couldn’t really bring herself to feel menaced.
He didn't really mean it. He was miming the loss of patienc, of quickly fleeting self-control. As hard as he was trying very hard to communicate to her that things would now turn a lot uglier, it wasn't convincing. He sounded only as poised and cocksure as his young, frantic,trembling and quite frankly forlorn form allowed.
She began to wonder: Was he really just as young as he made himself look?

“They’re ghone now. Chommander.” she coolly repeated, interrupting his slow unravelling. Then she reached for his palm and picked up her honorary bottle cap. “Send my thankhs to Sarajevo Palace. I am honoured by the ghesture.”

He ripped his eyes open again and gave her a long, bewildered stare.
He was so shocked that he took a wary step back.
Reading his befuddled face as best as she could, Edith tried herself at a disarming smile. It was terrible, but he seemed either not to mind or to care.

He cleared his throat as he visibly tried to bring his thoughts back into order.
“Oh, okay then. That’s... okay...”

She could see Golden Dirk deflating a little in his corner as his apparent tension left his body.

“You said you wanted to ease me in.” Edith reminded him, “You must have some bad news, huh?”

“Uh…”

“You mentioned there was a storm outside, didn’t you?”

He raised his eyebrows.
“I did? Yes, I did mention… that there is some pretty bad weather.” he stammered, “Blocked roads, broken bridges… the whole package.”

“That’s a shame,” Edith nodded. “I suppose we’ll be takhing… a different path to Canterlot. A detour. Perhaps a little longer than usual.”

He nodded dutifully.
“That… possibly, yeah.”

“I suppose there’ll be trouble with the char too.”

“The… cart?” he breathed.

“Yes, the chart.”

“The carts were… snowed in. We’ll have to walk the first leg. I’m sorry,” he spluttered.

She nodded.
“That’s okhay.”

“R-really?” he made sure, “We’ll have to take all our changeling prisoners with us too, you know. We’ll be travelling as a group-”

“I know.” she sighed.

He regained his hopeful smile.
“I… thank you for understanding.”

“No need to attracht the attention of all those Eqhuestrian Ghuards skhulkhing around. Right?”

He gasped.
“Right! I’m glad you… I mean… Yeah. Enough of those busybodies, eh?”

With one fluid, movement, he was hobbling back to his desk and started collecting random items in order to look busy.

Behind him, Golden Dirk was still bathing in his relief, though he didn’t dare to move an inch regardless.

“When will we ghet movingh?”

“Next thing tomorrow, I promise!” the Commander declared. “I, uh, suppose you’d want to get a good night’s sleep now.”

She was certainly not returning to that cocoon of hers, if that’s what he meant. She had seen what they caused with those unfortunate ponies from the last cavern.

“I suppose you chouldn’t ghet me a bed to lie on for the nexht chouple of hours? Your… waiting room was very unchomfortable.”

He raised his digits as he tried to answer back. “I’m afraid-”

“I thinkh I saw a mattress in one of the other rooms. That would be more than enough.”

“...Well, in that case, I don’t see why not.”

She moved after him, visibly twisting her arrows in her hands still.
He looked up, once again displaying nervousness as he saw her walking up.

“Chommander...” she said, in the most sincere and weak voice she could muster, “I… suppose I never said thankhs for your reschue operation.”

He breathed heavily, before raising his hands in a dismissive motion, “Like I said, United Nations look-”

“The United Nations looks out for their own. Yes.”
It was time to find out a little more about him. She leaned against his desk, as calmly as possible, and looked him straight in his not-quite-as-deceptive eyes, “Speakhing of which… are you the highest-ranking official here? If I wanted to speakh to a senior, would I have to lookh around for someone else?”

“Well, uh...” he began, before curling his face into a grin, as though he realised he was being tested, “You know as well as me who our leader is!”

“Of chourse,” she nodded. “But I mean in this chave… outpost of ours.”

“Oh… in here?”
He couldn’t hide his pride. “You are indeed talking to the most senior… commander here. Yes. You’re talking to the right pony.”
His eyes shrunk. “Person.”

Not that she had the means to confirm that.
“That’s ghood,” she sighed, and decided to take it one step further, “I want to be sure I’ll telling the right person about the Eqhuestrian Ghuard’s planned route.”

“Planned r...”
The Commander shivered like he could barely believe his good fortunes. “Yes. Don’t want all those infernal changelings listening in...”

“Of chourse not.”

She couldn’t say whether he had suddenly become a better actor in the course of the past few seconds or if he genuinely hanging on to her lips now.
She was willing to take the risk.

“I only ashkh for one tiny little favour.”

“Anything, Edith Šarić.”

“My feet are soakhing wet from the chave water. Chould I ghet my boots backh to warm them backh up?”

He nodded frantically.
“Sure th-”

His words and his nods got stuck in his throat before he was finished though.
From one moment to the next, looks of surprise and worry burst out of his face in quick succession.
His eyes slid off Edith’s and focused on something taking place right behind her.

Edith was toying with the thought of turning around and looking, but then a third voice chimed up at the back of her head.
“Your boots, Ma’am.”

She had barely managed to take the first step around when a crushing blow struck her in the temple.

Her senses flickered as gravity took over her body and sent her sailing in a wide arc at the ground.

She smacked into one of the rubber mats, the coarse material mercilessly grazing her cheek and her ear.

Her arrows scattered from her hands and clattered onto the floor, somewhere far far away.

Her vision must have blacked out. For a moment, all she could comprehend were the voices spiralling above her.

“No!” she heard Golden Dirk eject in a blood-curdling scream.

“Shut your mouth, you gilded horseapple,” the third voice muttered.

His anguished cry degenerated into a remorseful sob.

‘Commander Kolya’s’ voice was also reduced to a mere hysterical pant. “W-what did you this for? Why did you do that?!”

“Why do you think?” the third voice asked back irreverently.

“I had her! I-I nearly had her! She trusted me. She believed me. She was going to tell me about the ponies’ battle plans...”

“Are you actually that stupid, or are you just pretending?” the other voice inquired. “She was playing you. She probably figured it out decades ago.“ He snorted a changeling snort. “Her boots. Next you probably would've carved her a pair of skis too.”

“Why can't you, just for once, leave me alone with them?” ‘Commander Kolya’ whimpered.

“Because of just this, my little prince.”

Edith heard an arrow getting kicked away.
Only split-seconds later, a hoof shoved her over roughly, rolling her onto her back.

“How many times have I told you to stop playing with your food?" the third voice asked, hovering above her, "There are whole corners of the hive who’d be grateful just to get one creature to share!”

Next, she felt something heavy and warm perch on top of her.
Her whole body, from chest to thigh, was rocked by the creature’s vibrating pulse.

“Do something useful and bring Goldie over there back to his new home.”

She weakly forced her eyes open.
She found herself staring into the large insectoid eyes of a changeling.

“Good morning, lunch.”

Suddenly, his jet-black horn burt into green flames and swooped down onto her forehead.
She felt a burst of intense energy shooting through her brain and scorching her with a sanity-splitting sizzle.
And suddenly, as the consciousness was knocked out of her, it was all over.

“Good night, lunch.”

Comments

[ssokolow]

Sorry but, if you were trying to make the reader feel the same sense of confusion/disorientation/etc. that Edith was feeling, it didn't work.

I just failed to engage with the first 3/4 to 4/5ths of the chapter and sped through it, feeling like it was of uncharacteristically inferior quality.

I get the impression that you were trying to translate something you were familiar with in movie/TV fiction too directly for it to work properly in prose. That tends to be what trips up otherwise skilled writers.

[Tonto the Trotter]

9338719

I didn't enjoy this chapter myself, the story kinda feels like it's meandering a bit. Also these Changelings are idiots, exactly what do they think is going to happen to their queen, when the world fids out they're kidnapping humans and using them as a food source? Surely Changelings can't be so oblivious as to ignore the threat of Seven billion, technologically superior creatures? Then again Changelings haven't really come off as the smartest creatures, merely the sneakiest. Not that there aren't dumb humans too, of course. Like Alexander Estermann, I mean I get he's supposed to be her lawyer and trust her somewhat, but only an idiot would ignore warnings that she's a magical manipulative monster, that can control minds.

[Hein des Nisseroi]

Not intentionally, mind.”

‘‘(...) mind you.’’ ?

Thy were all wearing undress attire.

They

[Astorius]

Why would one even consider to negotiate with a side who only thinks of you as food? -_-
I am personally still waiting for the USA,Russia or China to send troops to secure Equestrias goodwill and ressources after the UN totally messes this up like they did in Bosnia and Ruanda ...............

[N4]

Shameless Self Promo Time:

I drew the header this time if you want 1500x1050 suavity.

[Marker]

Goodness me, poor Edith just couldn't catch a break, could she?

[N4]

9340295
that's kinda her shtick.

[PutridComrade7]

Personally I think this is the best (or at least the most interesting) take on Changelings the community has had. The Queen is completely on point. Honestly can't praise this masterpiece with my joke of a vocabulary, but my thoughts can be summed up as "very cool".

[UC]

This is a solid 9/10. And the only reason it's not 10/10 is because Equestria chapters are mildly annoying.

Can we get more of this please ?