//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: Exposed 
// Story: Remnant 
// by preaplanes 
//------------------------------//

"Oh come on, that performance was flawless! I bet I could outfly anypony you know!" Dash protested.

"Eh, I don't know," Silk responded, "You were fast, but you had to work at stopping. I used to know somepony who could have given you a run for your bits."

It was late morning and Twilight and "Silky" had just watched Rainbow Dash's latest aerobatic trick, a series of incredible dives at breakneck speeds near the sonic rainboom barrier. When asked for their opinions, Twilight had been very complimentary, Rainbow having outdone herself once again. Silk, however, had experience in flying; notably, this experience was in a radically different method of flight, and as such valued different aspects of it. The two could both appreciate all skilled forms of the craft, but while Dash valued speed and acceleration foremost, Silk put dexterity and maneuverability first.

"Oh yeah, right. Did you used to know one of the Wonderbolts?" Dash asked sarcastically, before realizing what she had asked. "Andifsocouldyouaskforanautographforme?" she added quickly in a mumble.

Silk had been referring to one of Queen Chrysalis' three chevaliers, Flit. Flit was formerly a member of the agile scout class, as Silk was, and was the changelings' foremost aerial combatant. Silk did not know this, but on the day Luna had sealed the changelings all away, Flit had nearly caught her decoy traps and foiled the night princess' strategy.

"One of the what?" she queried.

"You mean you've never heard of the WONDERBOLTS?!" Rainbow Dash asked incredulously.

"I guess not, is that a band or something?"

"Bass tummy!" Dash yelled dramatically pointing a hoof accusingly at Silk.

"I think you mean 'blasphemy'" Twilight interjected into the boisterous conversation.

"Yeah! What the egghead said!"

"Hey!" the purple mare objected.

Silk shrugged. "Hey, all I'm saying is you were focusing so much on speed that you couldn't have pulled off more than a thirty degree turn without drifting. You just had too much momentum from building up that much velocity. You could pull off much tighter corkscrews if you let up on the speed."

Dash groaned. Her friend did have a point, and the Wonderbolts were known for their aerobatics just as much as their speed and formation flying. "Sheesh, I'm not sure if you know what you're talking about or if you're just full of it. Are you sure you're not part pegasus?" she asked rhetorically, once again uncomfortably close to the truth.

As the disguised changeling put on a self-satisfied grin, Twilight rolled her eyes with a smile. "Okay, girls, I've got to go check up on some projects and give Spike his lunch," she said, levitating a large ruby out of her saddlebag for the two to see, "just try not to turn debate into argument."

"See ya, Twilight" Dash chimed in unison with Silk, who said "Alright, bye Twilight."

Twilight hoofed it back towards her library as she listened to the two resume their conversation.

"Maybe I could work on my turning before a sonic rainboom... ooh! Or after!"

"A sonic what boom?"

"That's where I go really fast and boom! Break through the wind resistance and accelerate a whole lot real fast and leave a giant explosion of rainbow awesomeness behind me!"

"Wait, that was YOU?!"

"Yeah! Wasn't that the most awesome-" Terrifying, Silk thought. "-thing you've ever seen?!"

The last that Twilight could make out before she was out of earshot was Silk saying coyly "I don't know if I'd say 'awesome'. Maybe 'grand' or..."





Twilight opened the door and stepped inside. The library was in order and judging from the snoring, Spike was still asleep, having helped her with observations regarding the stars the previous night, though he should have been up by now: it was nearly noon. On the other hoof, she did often forget that he was a baby dragon, so she decided not to lecture him about it. 

She followed the noise up the stairs and found him still soundly asleep in his basket. Twilight made a mental note that he was still growing, and that she would need to get him an actual bed in the next few weeks. Her first thought at this was that Silky might be able to help, but then recalled that she was quite adamant in her insistence that she did not know the first thing about it. She'd just go talk to Bucky Bedding.

"Spike! It's time to get up!" she prodded, nudging the slumbering dragon awake with her hoof a couple times.

Spike yawned and opened his eyes. "Alright, Twilight, I'm up, I'm up," he said.

"Well you missed breakfast, but I brought you a treat for lunch for being so diligent helping me with my research last night," she said, levitating the ruby and placing it in front of her assistant.

"Gee, thanks Twilight!" he sincerely thanked, taking hold of the gem and taking a bite out of it.

Twilight smiled at his grateful enthusiasm. "You enjoy, I'm going to go check on my projects."

"Can do!" he said, munching happily on the red stone as Twilight turned and headed toward the basement.

Twilight flipped on the switch, magically powered lights instantly illuminating the lab. The space was lined neatly and orderly with all sorts of gadgets and machines. Indication lights blinked at random all across the room like an army of fireflies. A procession of folded paper lay before her seismograph, which produced very straight lines, save for the marks made when Vinyl Scratch had dropped the bass at a Pinkie Party next door two days ago, and small shakes from her own hoofsteps. A number of experiments were placed into appropriate conditions and situated to allow for easy access and data recording.

The first thing that Twilight went over to was the star log that she had been keeping for a while. When Princess Celestia gave up control of the night to Princess Luna once again, things started changing, quite literally. Celestia was never meant to control the night as she had done for a thousand years, and as such her night sky was cold and unchanging, an eternal copy of star maps made shortly before her sister's banishment. 

Luna's new iteration of her ancient sky, however, was vibrant and full of life in comparison. Stars would move and nebulae would swirl, some stars would be born and others would grow dim or wink out of existence or explode like a firework in the vast night sky. 

Major constellations remained the same, so that navigation was not befuddled, but the white static dots in the sky had been replaced with a dynamic dance of slow, beautiful motions. Twilight Sparkle had taken the liberty of starting to compile all the changes that the princess of the night had made, to see if she could discern any patterns to maybe predict the princess' next changes. After a few months, she was still nowhere near a graph-able data set, and was growing unsure if such a task was even possible, and she wondered how anypony could have ever grown blase to this over a thousand years ago.

Twilight walked up to her magical star atlas very carefully copied in her notes from the previous night. The atlas took the shape of a globe. Stars dotting and shifting across the surface, hopefully mirroring the movements of the last few months, before resetting back to their previous position when they caught up to the last recorded night.

She had dubbed this little project the "Ursanometria". When it was completed, if it was completed, she hoped to show it to the princesses, although at the same time she knew she would be hesitant to waste their time with this paltry seeming bauble.

After a couple minutes her task was done she turned her attention to a second project, one less ambitious than the last. It was a simple attempt at observing the growth of a typical plant from the Everfree forest. She had set up a little terrarium, locking in the water the plant would need in a large clear jar for observation.

"Specimen's recorded growth... zero. Again."

For some reason she just could not get the sample to grow, and indeed it seemed to be dying. She didn't know that the plant would not grow in a dark basement without a source of thoroughly simulated sunlight.

Twilight sighed. "I don't get it," she said to herself, "these plants are supposed to grow all on their own. What am I doing wrong? Oh well." she said, turning her attention elsewhere.

Two hours later, Twilight thought to herself, wondering what other projects needed a look at. Nothing was coming to mind, but for some reason she felt she wasn't done.

What am I forgetting?

Twilight tapped her hoof on her chin, trying to think. She scanned the room with her eye as she did so, eventually falling on what she had been forgetting: her DNA sequencer.

"Oh yeah!" she said, giving herself a light tap on the forehead for forgetting. "That's right, it's been three weeks! Well, a bit over, the readout was probably ready last night. Now let's take a look at that." Twilight stepped over to the display and took a look. The result blinked in front of her.



PROCESSING COMPLETE 

ERROR: INVALID SAMPLE

SPECIMEN CONTAINS NO VIABLE DNA

PLEASE INSERT VALID SAMPLE



Twilight groaned. "That's impossible. EVERYPONY has DNA! Everything that's alive! And I'll prove it!"

Twilight walked upstairs in a huff as Spike walked down. "Spike, I need you to get the salt, the dish soap, the rubbing alcohol, and a couple of glasses. We have an experiment to run."





Twilight poured the alcohol gently into the top of the glass. After a few moments, she saw something begin to form. "There! See? DN... eh?"

Twilight looked down into the glass. Where a stringy white substance should have been, there swirled tiny whisps of multicolored light, predominantly green.

It was magic.

"What the? That's not possible. This is not possible!" Twilight yammered. She was at a loss for an explanation. Silky Sheets was a unicorn and could do some magic, sure, but she wasn't made out of arcane energy, was she? Twilight thought back to everything she'd heard about her and from her.

"I found her asleep over there on the bank of the river, crying and hurt. It was so sad! She looked like she came through the Everfree forest."

"She's hungry, but she isn't eating."

"The animals don't seem to trust her. Oh, but, uh, I'm sure it's just because they're not used to somepony new around."

"It was simply marvelous! I've never seen anypony work her mane so well with magic, going from straight to wavy just like like that. I did wonder if that was her special talent but I'm afraid I didn't see how that related to a bed of all things, unless it's to fight off bedhead of course."

"Yeah, she said she got hurt in that little scuffle up there in Canterlot durin' your brother's wedding."

“I... uh... don't... think mine really... means anything."

"What's with her, anyway, Twilight? She doesn't know about a lot of stuff. Maybe she's a foreigner or something?"

"Honestly I did try not to peek, a lady keeps her promises and never breaks a Pinkie promise after all, but it's rather hard to miss that bright green flash and that whooshing noise."

"Yeah! She's stops by for pastries and cupcakes and muffins and stuff! She doesn't seem to each much else which is weird and you know what they say about too much junk food. Well, I don't, but I'm sure you do! She doesn't seem to eat much in the first place though, so I guess she only eats about as many sweets as everypony else. Why do you think that is?"

"You mean you've never heard of the WONDERBOLTS?!"

After a few seconds, all of it added up, and Twilight's eyes widened in realization. "Oh no..." A large number of dark thoughts and scenarios crept into her mind; assassinations, imprisonment, betrayal, and spies all took up space in her head.

Twilight dashed away from the table and over to the bookshelves, looking for a clue, checking a number of books and floating them close to her. "No, no, no, no no no nononono!"

Spike was confused. "Twilight... what are you doing?"

"Spike, quick, help me look for a book on changelings!"

"I don't think we have any of those."

This answer stopped Twilight in her tracks. Changelings were as mysterious as dragons, and even more reclusive. Even if you did see one, you'd probably never know it. Finding a book on them in this town library was unlikely. "Darn it!"

"Uh, Twilight, what's gotten into you?"

Twilight spat the answer out. "Silky's a changeling!"

Spike's eyebrows went up in mild surprise. "Wow, really? Neat. I guess that explains a few things, huh?"

Twilight snapped at him. "It is not neat, Spike! This is really bad! Mind you, the implications of a creature with magic instead of DNA are fascinating, but now a changeling is close to the elements of harmony. Way, way too close! Take a note, Spike, we have to let Princess Celestia know about this immediately!"

Spike rolled his eyes and groaned. Twilight seemed to be overreacting to him. Sure Silky was totally clueless about some stuff but she didn't seem bad. He took out his quill, ink, and parchment and began to write.


Dear Princess Celestia,

It has come to my attention that the unicorn I have written to you about, Silky Sheets, is in fact a changeling. I do not know what steps you should take, you would know better than I would, but after what happened to Princess Cadance, I implore swift action in this urgent matter. I will be taking steps to ensure that no harm comes to myself, the other Elements of Harmony, or anypony else.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle


Spike wrapped up and sealed the parchment breathed a small plume of green fire, converting the message into ash, which spiraled out the window as Twilight galloped out into the street.





Silk stood there in Applejack's barn, contentedly sipping on a glass of punch on the sidelines of another one of Pinkie's parties, this one thrown for another passerby. It seemed like she threw one of these every day. There were often ponies coming in from Canterlot to get away from the city, or traveling through town to get there, and somehow, it seemed like Pinkie was there to greet the majority of them. Anypony who stuck around for more than a couple hours would get one, which most thought was weird. And they'd be right.

Even with Silk's limited sense of the value of a bit, she knew that this must surely get expensive, but that at the same time, that the amount of business and special commissions that she and the Cakes saw was considerable.

Silk had begun taking these opportunities to eat to her heart's content. The flavors of emotions got all mixed and jumbled into a sweet mix that one couldn't quite pick out the individual aspects of, much like how a pony would taste the beverage she was now drinking.

Pinkie Pie was here, of course, and so were Applejack and Rarity. Last Silk had checked, Fluttershy was escorting snapping turtles from one pond to another. In this case, "escorting" did not mean carrying, but walking next to, ever so slowly. Needless to say, she would likely arrive late. Rainbow Dash wouldn't be able to make it, today was supposed to be overcast and the day before had been clear skies, so she was busy making trips back and forth from Cloudsdale to bring new clouds in. Twilight Sparkle was busy with her experiments, though how long that would take was anypony's guess.

Silk had spent much of the last two weeks doing random things around town. Though she had loosened up a lot after that first day, the compulsion to have a purpose was strong, and all the random work would take her mind off of things. She still didn't eat much pony food, only stopping into Sugarcube Corner for pick-me-ups when she started feeling particularly down, so her food budget was nearly nonexistent. She would still buy juice, though, usually drinking it instead of water, but overall her expenses were very low, and as such she had been building up a sizable number of bits.

She was very hit and miss with her jobs. Some would go smoothly, some would not, and others had results that were reminiscent of a certain mailmare. Still, she excelled at nothing so far. The closest thing she had to a useful ability was her transformation spell, which she used only to help out Rarity (and always changed back to the slightly wavy, dark grey mane with the three turquoise stripes afterward), and that felt like a hollow victory since that was a trait of her race, not her.

Silk caught a brief aftertaste of worry and panic. Either Fluttershy had arrived, or Twilight Sparkle had arrived and was worrying about some letter to somepony again... or somepony had found Gummy enjoying a dip in the punch... again. Silk put the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth to try to figure it out.

Yeah, I think that's Twilight. I'll see if I'm right in a minute.

Silk had been adjusting as best she could to her new circumstances, and one thing she found was that just like every changeling had a distinct voice she could listen for if she knew them well enough, every pony's emotions had a certain flavor as well. This might have applied to changelings as well, but without dropping her proverbial guard, she would have never known; the differences were very subtle, like that of two dishes prepared by two professional chefs following the same recipe. Silk was just beginning to figure this out, and did not know for certain if her guesses were accurate.

Twilight soon emerged through the crowd, confirming Silk's guess. As soon as the purple pony saw her, the panic turned to relief, which very quickly turned to anger. "Hi, Twilight. What's wrong?" Silk asked, a little concerned about this emotional shift. Something must have gone wrong in her experiments.

Twilight snarled, infuriated at the falsely-assumed idea that somepony was out to harm her friends. "Oh, I'm sure you know what's wrong!"

"Look, if it's about that scylla attack yesterday, I swear I was just taking a swim!" Silk defended.

Rarity joined in the conversation, walking over from another conversation she was having. "In the narrow water channel on the Everfree forest border. Really, dear, I know you're new here but that was simply lacking in common sense."

"Hey, I said I was sorry!"

Twilight shook her head and angrily stomped her hoof. "No, not that!"

Pinkie and Applejack now joined the three. "Punch?" Pinkie offered.

"Oh, I'm seriously thinking about it!" the element of magic growled.

"Woah there, sugarcube," Applejack said, pushing Twilight Sparkle back slowly with her muscular hoof, "just calm down and tell us what's wrong."

"This!" Twilight said, blasting a startled and confused Silk with a beam of magic, aiming from head to toe in half a second.

The blast caught Silk totally unawares, the initial hit blinding and disorienting her, knocking her back against the barn wall, the magic giving a mild scorching.

Silk's eyes regained focus and she wobbly got back on her hooves, seeing that Applejack had tackled Twilight and had her pinned in such a way that she couldn't stand up. Hot anger and outrage seethed from the both of them.

"What the heck's the matter with you, Twi?!" Applejack demanded at this unprovoked attack.

"See for yourself!"

Gasps were heard all across the room, and were the only noise heard aside from the music playing in the background, as ponies all around began to stare.

There before them stood a changeling, fully exposed in her natural onyx armor. Her eyes were completely light blue, her sclera a somewhat darker shade than the rest. She had a pair of fangs, though they were less pronounced than those that the Elements of Harmony had fought. Her horn was jagged and blunt, ill suited for use as a weapon, and her hooves had holes that resembled Swiss cheese. Two holes on her front left hoof had a web of rough marks on otherwise perfectly smooth shell connecting them showing it had recovered from an injury, the shell having fused back together. The changeling's wings were tiny and jagged, obviously horribly damaged, but what remained was a transparent azure, the material vaguely resembling the wings of gossamer and morning dew that Twilight had once conjured for Rarity.

Silk at first didn't know what was had happened, but a feeling of dread rapidly grew inside her as she became the center of attention. Then it hit her.

No...

The room was filled with shock and surprise, tasting as if one licked a battery, but soon that changed.

"I don't believe it," AJ said. She snapped at Silk, "What're you doin' here, ya consarned monster?!"

The emotions of the room soon changed. Now there was anger and rage.

Silk stammered quietly, trying to come up with something to say. "No no, I didn't, I only"

Wrath. Indignation. Outrage. Silk's mouth burned like a wildfire.

"No..." she whispered as a number of them surrounded her, her eyes beginning to water. Her voice echoed slightly.

Hatred.

"NO!" she yelled, using the only thing she could think of, a spell that all changelings had: a lime green blast of energy that exploded on impact. Silk aimed at the wall behind her, sending a cloud of smoke and a wave of splinters about. Her shell would protect her, even with the epicenter placed five inches from her body, though the wooden shrapnel would probably cause a number of ponies to require an evening with a pair of tweezers.

Silk galloped away through the new hole in the wall, heading into the Everfree forest, teardrops trailing behind her.





Ponies coughed as the smoke settled, revealing a hole large enough for two ponies to fit through. The changeling was gone, disappeared in the confusion.

"Is everypony alright?" Rarity asked.

Applejack surveyed the scene. "Other than lookin' like some ponies lost a fight with Bloomberg, I'd say we're just fine."

"AHEM" somepony coughed from beneath the blonde maned farmpony.

"Oops. Sorry, Twi," Applejack sheepishly appologized, helping her friend to her hooves. "This is bad, innit? We've gotta find out what that phony pony did with Silky!"

Twilight shook her head. "I think that was Silky." She explained the evidence to her friends, the most damning being tied between the blood and the use of high-level transformation magic, the various ponies in the room leaving for home as she did so. Several tried to see if they could follow her, but stopped dead in their tracks when they were led to Everfree's edge.

Applejack gulped. "So, who's gonna break the news to Fluttershy?"

Rarity volunteered. "I'll tell her. Pardon me for saying so, but the rest of you lack a delicate touch."

Twilight and Applejack nodded in solemn agreement. Pinkie, on the other hoof, seemed to be spacing out. Twilight raised an eyebrow for a moment, but since the pony in question was Pinkie she lowered it two heartbeats later. 

"So, where do you think she's run off to?" AJ inquired.

Twilight shrugged. "I don't know. To return to the rest of them? One of my atlases had a place labeled the 'Changeling Marshes' and a warning saying not to go there, but that's all the information I have on them that we don't already know. I checked!"

Rarity frowned. "I'm not so certain, dear. I've heard a little rumor floating about Ponyville," she said. "I'm certain I told this to Rainbow Dash, but supposedly on the night your brother got married, some pegasus had a few too many of Joe's doughnuts and got angry that the changelings had blown a hole in his shop's wall in the fighting." Rarity gestured a hoof to the makeshift exit Silk had produced. "So he decided it would be a wonderful idea to fly over to that swamp and give them a piece of his mind."

"That couldn't have ended well," Twilight added.

"Actually, Twilight, that's just it. When he got there, it was totally empty. Nopony in sight. Nothing at all, though Lyra swears she heard that he had seen emerald blood staining the branches of several trees."

Applejack scratched her head. "What do you reckon that means, Rarity?"

"I couldn't begin to guess, it's just a rumor I'd heard. Anyway, I should go speak to Fluttershy. I think it's best that the poor dear hears this from one of us first."

Pinkie was still very much with her head in the clouds, either blissfully unaware of the situation, or blissfully unaware of its gravity. Either way, it was probably best to bring her back to reality, or what counted for reality in Pinkie's world.

Twilight sighed. "I guess the rest of us will go tell Rainbow Dash. Won't we, Pinkie?"

Pinkie broke out of her reverie. "Huh? Oh, sorry, I was thinking about socks."

"What?"

"Yeah! I mean, how would Silky put on socks? They'd get all snagged on those holes, and it would be all lumpy and wouldn't fit right!"

Twilight was confounded. "But Pinkie, we... oh, nevermind."

With that they split up and left the party.





What did you expect? Emotions only bring pain. Those ponies? Those "friends" of yours? They only liked you because they thought you were one of them, Silk scolded herself.

She was wandering about Everfree, looking for the area where it parted and turned into a marsh... her marsh. She was now getting close, walking about for a few hours. Despite her sense of direction and logic saying she was going the right way, her instincts were telling her that she was wrong. She had never had to find her way home before, and had nearly gotten lost a couple of times. Still, it was the only place she felt was safe now, so she pressed on.

She had come under attack once by a manticore, but she was in no mood to play the intimidated foal and had simply blasted the creature unconscious, her spell luckily knocking it against a tree, probably breaking a rib or two as it ragdolled into unwilling slumber.

She was normally led to the swamp very easily, simply flying in the general direction of the swarm's thoughts. Even when she was watching the dragons in the Scorched Lands it was comforting, to always know that home was right over there, the thoughts of her people ever present to guide her. Now all that existed was that ringing and the sound of her own thoughts echoing into nothingness. She had begun to ignore it these last few weeks, but now it seemed deafening. Haunting. Maddening.

Her hooves hit murky water. She had arrived. Around her stood a collection of empty trees, a vast collection of them. Silk did not know what else she had expected to find, but the sight of it drove the facts home. Every changeling, every single one of them, was gone, damned to perdition forever... even the children. It had never been a wonderful place, it had indeed been a place of hardship, but now it was simply a cruel mockery made real.

Silk would have held out hope that there might be an excommunicated changeling out there, but she knew that that would be a foal's hope. Even cut off from the swarm, their presence could still be felt, like somepony who was silent in a conversation. Shortly after Discord broke free, queen Chrysalis had invited the only two exiles back in, so they had been present when the invasion took place. They had been cut off for a reason, though. Their thoughts were disturbing, disgusting, twisted and sickening; such thoughts could not be allowed to taint the minds of the collective group. Even if there were exiles left, Silk would likely not have found any solace in them.

Silk kept trudging, and passed the central tree, the largest in the area. That was where the queen slept, where she shepherded and guarded them all... only that shepherd had sent them all to the slaughter for her own gain.

Silk kept going, lost in her own thoughts. Love? tolerance? Friendship? Hah, what a foal's notion. Ponies had affection for each other, but that was as far as it went. It was not that long ago when they could hardly stand anypony outside their own breed, and dragons? Griffins? Zebras? Changelings? They rarely tolerated them, let alone accepted or love them, and feared them instead.

And in Silk's case, she knew, with good reason. After what she was prepared to do, what she was going to do in Canterlot? She knew she didn't deserve it. Applejack's accusations were true: she was a monster.

Silk soon found it. Her own tree. In truth it had been Skitter's, but he had let her stay there as well. Space was scarce here, the swamp an unbearably small territory for a swarm so relatively large. For a few moments she beat her broken wings in vain, but stopped once her stationary position reminded her. She cried and walked over to a thick root sticking out of the water. She crawled up on it, curling up and lying down as she sobbed to herself.

Silk told herself otherwise, but she was caught in a negative feedback loop. Her own misery formed a poison and made her sick, which caused her to feel even more depressed, causing even stronger poison, sending her even further into depression. This was colloquially known as a "death spiral". Eventually, this cycle would kill her. If the swarm was still there, they would keep their distance for fear of the emotion radiating from her, but they would console her with their thoughts.

But Silk was alone, completely and utterly alone. There would be no words of comfort to save her or to ease her passage. With her emotional barriers down, she only had about two days, rather than a week. This poison would kill slowly, slowing and eventually stopping her heart.

Alone and unloved, sad and hated even by herself, Silk began to pass out. Before she lost consciousness, she thought she saw a number of large silhouettes converging on her from above.

Her dreams this night were as dark as those that the night mare touched.





"Do you see her?"

"Nope. Wait is that her?"

Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack were looking for Rainbow Dash, though that was proving increasingly difficult with all the clouds the weather team had been bringing in all afternoon.

"I don't know. Do you think you could cast that wings spell again, Twilight?" Applejack asked.

Twilight looked apprehensive. "Well, I don't know. You're not going to repeat the story of Icarus like Rarity did, are you?"

"Who's that?"

"The pony who invented the spell. He supposedly got so cocky he asked Celestia if he could lower the sun for her once, and she humored him and let him try. His wings burned up and she wound up saving him."

"Ah, I see. I'll make sure I don't fly too high then."

A voice from above them said "I'd actually like to see that." The trio looked up and saw Rainbow Dash flying above them. "It'd give me a chance to beat her in a flying race." She'd only been there a few seconds.

"Okay, that squares it. Do it, Twi, I can't wait to beat the pants offa-"

"Now's not the time, you two!" Twilight interrupted. "Rainbow Dash, we've got some news for you. It might not be easy to take."

Dash looked unimpressed. "Okay, shoot! Lay it on me."

"You know Silky?"

"Uh, duh?"

"She's... a changeling." Twilight wasn't sure what reaction she was expecting, but the one that followed certainly wasn't it.

Dash laughed. "Hah! Sweet Celestia, I'm awesome! I so totally called it! You owe me fifty bits, Pinkie!"

Pinkie looked sour at this. "Shoot! I was so sure you were wrong, too. Oh well, a Pinkie promise is a Pinkie promise," she said, reaching into her saddlebag.

Twilight was shocked. "You KNEW?!"

Dash made a motion of brushing off the question. "I didn't really KNOW, but after she said she didn't know about the Wonderbolts this morning, I kinda figured it out. It was kinda obvious, and I had a hunch before that. I mean, the hair spell, the way she looks at clouds so desperately, that passion when she talked about flying, the fact that she's a totally clueless about every other thing she sees? So I made a bet with Pinkie at lunch. I didn't expect it to pay off so fast, though!"

"And you didn't tell anypony else?"

"Hey, that's her business. She'll tell us when she's ready. You didn't tell anypony, did you?"

Twilight gulped. "I, uh, kinda exposed her... to half the town..."

RD was startled. "What?! Why did you do that?!" she asked, landing in front of Twilight

"Because she could be a spy! Or an assassin sent to get close to the Elements of Harmony!"

"What are you TALKING about?! What, did she attack somepony or something?" Dash pressed, genuinely surprised.

Pinkie Pie laughed. "Nope, that was Twilight! She lit up her horn all glowy and ZZZEOW! Hit silky with a bright pink laser beam and turned her back into a changeling! Not that she wasn't a changeling before, but now it was obvious! Then Applejack asked her 'What're you doin' here, ya consarned monster?!' Then everypony surrounded her and she broke the wall with a big green spell and everypony got splinters and she ran away crying! It was pretty sad. I guess she couldn't fly away with her wings all smashed up like that," she blabbed, telling the whole story very bluntly.

Dash was shaking. "I... I can't believe..."

Twilight walked up to Rainbow and consoled her, moving to put a hoof on her shoulder. "I know, it's hard to believe that she's a-"

Dash smacked the hoof away. "I can't believe you would do that!!! How could you?!"

The student of Celestia was taken aback. "What? I-"

Rainbow Dash was seething mad. Madder than the three had ever seen her. Angrier than she'd ever been. "She's your friend, isn't she? She's my friend! How could you just betray her like that?!"

"I- I thought she might be here to hurt us!"

"Are you STUPID!? We found HER!!! Fluttershy found her on that riverbank totally busted up, remember?! And if she was going to hurt us, don't you think she would've done it by now?!"

"But she's a changeling, so-"

"So WHAT?! Spike's a dragon and I don't see you hurting HIM! What's next? You going to attack me because I don't have a horn?!"

Applejack stepped in. "Settle down, Rainbow, she didn't mean ta-"

"And you!" Dash said, spinning around on her hooves and pointing a hoof accusingly at the orange farmpony. "How could you call her that?!"

The farm mare found herself on the defensive, right in Rainbow Dash's crosshairs. "Hey, I didn't even think that was actually her right then an' she's been lyin' about who she was this whole time!"

"After the way you treated her when you found out?! I don't blame her!"

After that viscous tongue-lashing, Twilight and Applejack were feeling incredibly guilty. "... you're right, Rainbow. I feel lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut," AJ admitted.

"Where is she now?" Rainbow demanded.

"Oh, she's right over here, Dashie! Or Twilight thinks she might be there, hard to tell." Pinkie replied, producing a map out of thin air and pointing a hoof to the swamp.

Dash smiled and took the map. "Thanks, Pinkie. I'm glad some of us are still looking out for our friends," she said, shooting a glare over her shoulder. Dash took off like a rocket, blazing a multicolored trail behind her.

Twilight Sparkle and Applejack exchanged guilty looks. "What do you reckon we do now?"

"Well," Twilight answered, "I guess we figure out a way to apologize, and figure out a way to get the town to accept her."

Pinkie jumped up and down. "Ooh! Ooh! I know! How about a party!? I mean, it worked for Princess Luna!"

Twilight shifted a bit, feeling antsy. "Well, Luna had Princess Celestia's good word going for her. I could ask her for a pardon or a few good words or something, I guess, so that'll work for the town, but I think we'll need to do something more personal to apologize for this mess when she gets back."

"If she comes back." Applejack remarked grimly.

The purple unicorn sighed, not knowing how to make this right. Even Rainbow Dash was mad at her, and she had taken the whole Mare Do Well thing in stride. "Come on, Girls, we've got some work to do."





Dash zoomed into the swamp, navigating around the Everfree Forest to do so. She could easily outstrip anything that could come from there, but the place still made her uneasy. She slowed her flight down as she entered so that she could search without missing anything.

"Silky? Silky, where are you?" she called loudly. There was no response. She flew about for several minutes, calling and calling before she spotted something standing in the water.

She flew down and reached in for it, hoping it wasn't an alligator (with teeth). She pulled out a saddlebag, which was fairly weighty with bits. She looked inside, seeing a few odds and ends, and a large brown feather, too large to be a pegasus. Fearing the worst, the pegasus checked the front, and sure enough, there sat a bed stitched into the flap.

"Silky, where did you go?" Dash whispered as she stared out into the empty marsh, not seeing a pair of golden eyes watching her from the shadows.