Naractia's Nightmare-(Night)

by Shadowflame

Exchanging Ideals

"Hey, wake up."

The male changeling groggily opened his eyes as a voice woke him. Still half asleep, he looked up at who woke him. It was Naractia, in her unicorn form. She was placing a small plate of food on the ground in front of him, easily within his reach even when he was bound to a tree.

Naractia nudged the male's plate towards him, "Come on, eat up." The male looked up at her face to see the smallest hint of a smile around her mouth. The male nodded to her without saying a single word and began to eat. Meanwhile, Naractia went to the other changeling drones to give them their food.

The male's food consisted of hay and apples, which were fairly common food for ponyfolk. However, this wasn't the case for a changeling. The changeling hive did not find anything like this to eat, since neither hay nor apples grew in their native territory, the bad-lands. And so, every changeling had to fight for whatever food they could find, even if that meant eating one of their own kind.

The male shuddered at the thought of killing another one of his kind, since he now saw it as repulsive after being able to think for himself. "I hope I never have to do that again, just to survive. Being a cannibal just feels... wrong." He looked down at the food he ate now, It feels strange to be given food, rather than having to fight for it. He shook his head and resumed eating.

But then, he looked in front of him to see Naractia again, lying on her back, looking up at the sky above. He raised an eyebrow at her, "What are you doing?"

Naractia was startled for a moment, as she didn't expect any of the other changelings to talk to her, not after their conversation the day before. She looked at the male, "What?"

The male cleared his throat, "I said, what are you doing?"

"Oh," Naractia looked back at the sky, "I'm watching the clouds. I don't know what it is, but I find them... interesting."

The male glanced up at the clouds that floated over the forest. To him, they just seemed like big masses of smoke, not very interesting in his mind. "What's so interesting about them?"

Naractia shrugged, "Well..., we never see any clouds back in the bad-lands, so I've never been able to appreciate them. All of them are completely different from one another, whether they're big or small. They all come in different shapes, and it's kind of fun to figure out what they resemble."

"Really?" The male looked up at the sky behind the clouds, sighing to himself, "Well, I don't really care for clouds. But the sky itself is what I like. I've never been able to enjoy it before I began to think for myself. But now that I know how to enjoy it, I can't. Since I've been tied to this tree, all I've wanted to do is just take to the sky and leave all of this behind."

But then another voice piped up, "What are you two fools talking about?" The male craned his neck around the trunk of the tree he was bound to, to see the leader glaring back at him and Naractia. The leader scoffed at them, "What's so great about the sky? There's nothing there."

The male paused before replying, "Exactly. There's nothing there. No troubles and no problems. There's nothing up there that can stop you from soaring forever. I think that's why I like flying so much. Makes me wonder why I've stayed in the hive for my entire life."

"But what I want to know," The female interjected, "Is the real reason why Naractia left the hive."

Naractia sighed, "I already told you. I left the hive so I could experience love. The kind of love that can never be found in the changeling hive."

The female rolled her eyes, "Yes, we heard you the first time. But surely you haven't forgotten one small fact: No one leaves the hive."

Naractia raised an eyebrow as she pulled herself up from the ground, "What do you mean?"

The female humphed rudely, "You may have ran away from the hive to try and blend in the ponies in Equestria, but you'll always be a changeling. If you try to hide yourself here, then one day, some pony will find you out. And when they do, they will hunt you down and either drive you out or lock you up. No changeling has ever made friends with a pony."

Naractia narrowed her eyes at the female, "Then what about my friends, Rowan, Zecora, and Twilight? They've never chased me out or locked me up, and they never will."

The female barked harshly at Naractia, "You must be daft. Every changeling knows that Rowan wasn't a pony by birth, Zecora is a zebra, and that only leaves you with Twilight. But that is only one pony out of a million in Equestria who would lock you up on sight. Face it, Naractia, you'll always be a changeling, no matter what you do."

Naractia was fuming as she looked at the female changeling in rage, "Well you know what? I'm fine with having only them as my friends. They've been kinder to me than the hive or my own mother."

The leader interjected, "Kindness is for the we-"

"SHUT UP!" Naractia shouted loudly at all of the changelings, making all of them recoil a bit in surprise. Naractia's face was contorted in anger and her horn was aglow with shadow magic, "You don't know what I've been through ever since I was banished during the Canterlot invasion. I was cast out by Chrysalis for wanting to help the ponies of Equestria. She took everything away from me except for my life and the name she gave me."

The female glared at Naractia, "Then you should be grateful. If any changeling drone disobeyed the queen, she would have killed them instantly. And you even have a name. Any changeling would kill at the chance to be given a name by the queen. Every drone is considered insignificant, and therefore never receive a name. You should be grateful that you have your life and your name, you traitor."

Naractia paused before she let go of her anger, "Yeah, I suppose you're right. Any changeling would love to be given a name, wouldn't they?" She sighed, "But not me. I hate the name Chrysalis gave me. It's an ugly name for a killer and a tyrant, and I'm neither."

The leader scoffed at her, "Well, you can't do anything about that. You were given that name for life, Naractia."

Naractia narrowed her eyes at him, "No, there is something that I can do. I'm getting rid of my name, and I'm choosing one of my own. A name that I can be called as a pony."

All three of the bound changelings went silent as they looked at Naractia with wide-eyed stares. The male looked at Naractia with a questioning look, "Choose your own name?"

The leader quickly composed himself and scoffed, "Please, you can try to rid yourself of your name, but in the end, everyone will still call you by it, *Naractia*." He finished with a humph, emphasizing the banished changeling's name.

Naractia had just about had it with these drones. So, she turned away from them and resumed with her usual activity of watching the clouds in the sky above. But behind her, the male was beginning to process new thoughts that began to spring into his mind.

Could she really change her name? Is it that simple? The male looked up at the sky, Could I give myself a name of my own? He looked back to Naractia and quietly called out to her, "If you could choose your own name, what would it be?"

Naractia whipped her head around back at him, "What? Oh... um..." She was clueless as to what name she would choose. But then her eyes caught the sight of her cutie mark, the one that she had chosen before coming here, a single rose. Suddenly, a name came to her mind, and she looked back at the male with a smile before replying, "Rosa."

"Rosa?" The male looked at her questioningly, "Okay, it's your name. But I would have chosen something cooler."

Naractia raised an eyebrow, "And what name would you choose?"

The male paused with a surprised expression, "Oh, me?... I don't know, I haven't thought about it."

Naractia grinned at him and rested her head back against the ground as she resumed watching the clouds above her.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Vironect walked through the dim tunnels of the changeling hive, inspecting every aspect of the swarm... Well, that was what Chrysalis thought he was doing at the moment. In truth, he was checking and receiving information from his personal spies throughout the hive. He needed to be aware of any other events that could interfere with his plans.

As he walked, he flipped his mane out of his line of sight. Ever since Queen Chrysalis had proclaimed him as her heir, Vironect had changed his form to that of a more regal presence. After all, he needed some way that would make him stand apart from the other changelings in the hive. As such, he now had a molted green mane that ran down to his shoulders.

But soon, Vironect saw one of his spies come into sight. He walked nonchalantly up to the changeling spy and when they were within a few feet of each other, the spy gave his report.

"There haven't been any events inside the hive that could mess with the operation." The spy said in a hushed voice, "However, the team that you sent to catch Naractia hasn't returned yet. It's been two days since Naractia fled the hive. Do you suppose they were unsuccessful?"

Vironect paused before cursing to himself, "If they've failed to capture Naractia, that will put our plans at risk of failure." He narrowed his eyes at his spy, "Gather a small group of our changelings, about twenty or so. Start sending them out of the hive in pairs of two, one after another. We need to leave for Ponyville immediately, but we can't let the queen or the other changelings know that we're leaving, got it?"

The spy nodded and quickly flew through the tunnels of the hive to complete his task. But Vironect stood in the tunnel alone, cursing to himself, "Those foolish drones. They must have revealed themselves early and alerted Naractia of their presence." He sighed, "I underestimated you, Naractia. Both you and your weak ponies."

Vironect turned around to see the first pair of changelings fly past him, flying up to the exit of the hive, "But now I'm coming, and I will not show any weakness." With a few beats of his wings, Vironect took to the air and flew up to the exit of the hive.

By his calculations, Vironect estimated that his party of changelings would arrive in Ponyville by the middle of the night. The darkness would help them in capturing Naractia and reclaiming his captured drones, without anypony noticing. However, little did he know that this night, the townsponies of Ponyville were celebrating one of their favorite holidays: Nightmare Night.

Author's Note:

Hey everybody. It's been so long since I posted another chapter of this story... Too long, actually. But just so you know, I estimate that there will be only three more chapters for this story, and I've prolonged the story's completion long enough. It's high time that I knuckled down and finished this story.

But I've been busy, so I haven't been writing any chapters for this story for the past few weeks. I'm currently working on two other stories besides this one. If you're wanting some more stories to read, then I'll post a link for my other published story, Brony Game Online.

But on top of that, I've been getting into photoshop and flash animation. Hopefully, I'll actually be able to make something presentable and post it on the site.

Anyways, thanks for reading,
-Shadowflame

Comments

[Luckyfanisaac]

The female humphed rudely, "You may have ran away from the hive to try and blend in to the ponies in Equestria, but you'll always be a changeling. If you try to hide yourself here, then one day, some pony will find you out. And when they do, they will hunt you down and either drive you out or lock you up. No changeling has ever made friends with a pony."

The leader quickly composed himself and scoffed, "Please, you can try to rid yourself of your name, but in the end, everyone will still call you by it, *Naractia*." He finished with a humph, emphasizing the banished changeling's name.“(——