//------------------------------// // Pale Moonlight // Story: Things Are Rarely as They Seem // by Orkus //------------------------------// All Habeas could do was clumsily stagger around in the pitch darkness of the barn. It was chaos, plain and simple. He had no idea where the being attacking him was, she probably had just about as much of a clue as to where he was now that he was on the move and out of her clutches, and the clatter that followed rang aloud. What Habeas naturally did was make his way to the building's door as fast as he could and blundered into the cool, night-laden outside. Turning about as he heard the hoofsteps of somepony pursuing him, Habeas finally got a clear look at his attacker. From what he could see in the faint moonlight shooting through the dark clouds above, it was a brown-furred earth pony mare roughly his own size emerging from the barn, and clutched tightly in her front hooves, both of which were currently scraping across the ground, was a plain, three-pronged pitchfork she must have snatched while in there. Her long mane blew about in the breeze, and Habeas decided next to get a look at her face. What he noticed first made him freeze like a statue in shock. That scar. That long, horrid scar stretching vertically over her gray and cloudy left eye was one that Habeas recognized right off. It was the same scar possessed by the knight on the road. The other, seeing one, showing like a jagged shard of ice, expressed the same malice and hate no different than what he saw that night. Habeas was so distracted by his realization of who his attacker was that he failed to react in time as the pony charged at him like a furious bear. She silently raised the pitchfork in preparation for a mighty horizontal swing, but the changeling lifted his hurt leg in startled, defensive reaction, having forgotten his terrible wound in the haze that was provided in this moment. When the makeshift weapon struck across his arm as fast as a bolt of lightning, it shattered the hardened resin bracing it like glass and damaged the already-crippled limb to a degree worse than before; nullifying whatever healing that had been done thus far. As the newly-wrought pain set his mind aflame with searing agony, Habeas could do nothing but cry out loudly as he desperately stumbled back, eventually hitting his body against the wall of the house a dozen feet behind him and slumping down to the ground. The pony, a dagger of pure malice shimmering in her good eye whilst the other showed a similar, duller expression, got ready to lunge forward to finish him. Peach Blossom, once sleeping contently on her bed, was shaken awake as the sound of an agonized shriek hit her ears. Quickly regaining her wits, she realized that the noise was coming from somewhere outside. Throwing her covers back as an expression of both realization and horror overcame her face, she knew exactly what was going on. Without thinking against it, she dashed out of her room as fast as she could run, jumped down the stairs and burst out the front door so hard and fast that she thought for a second that it would come flying off of its hinges. Looking around rapidly, the sound of fearful and pained grunting led her to the sight of two shapes nearby. As the filly feared, there her mother was, a pitchfork in her hooves and looming over the hurt form of Habeas Brittle, who was curled up and cornered against the house's wall. The pitchfork came dangerously close to his exposed throat, and there was barely a thing he could do to stop it from getting nearer. It was here when Peach Blossom cried out. "Mom, stop it!" "Peach Blossom!" Persica shouted back to her daughter, but with her view still trained on Habeas. "Get back inside at once! This creature is dangerous!" "No!" she shouted back, running toward them as she spoke. "He's not dangerous! He's my friend!" "He's a changeling! He's been deceiving you!" "No he hasn't!" "He has only cast an illusion over you, my naive child," Persica growled next as she jabbed the pitchfork closer to her prey, almost getting Habeas to whimper, which he stifled instead. He gave a glance to Peach Blossom as Persica went on. "He's cast a spell on your mind that puts it in his control as he siphons your love from you." "I-if I wanted to drain her of her love, I-I-I would have been all healed up from th-the love and be gone by now!" Habeas interjected from where he sat cradling his hurt limb with a stutter. "But I'm not like those changelings! Like I told her, I'm different from them! I-I just want to-" "Stop talking," rasped Persica, pointing the pitchfork's tip closer to the hurt changeling's throat. If she felt like it, one swift thrust was all it would take to end his life now, and Habeas could not help but squirm about in fear of that certainty and from the pain in his re-hurt leg. "Mom, this isn't some trick! I'm not under any spell! Just please don't kill him!" Peach Blossom continued to frantically speak out. She ran to her mother's side and placed her hooves upon one of her front legs, pulling the mare's view to her. "Mom, look at me. Do I look like I've had the love stolen from me? Do I look mind-controlled? Because I don't feel mind-controlled." Persica took her attention off of the changeling at long last and looked into her daughter's eyes. She expected to see a twinge of changeling magic hanging about her. A small, easily-missed clue in her young eyes that would tell the mare that Peach Blossom was not herself. What she saw was... Nothing. Persica wanted to deny this for many reasons, but her daughter's plea was sincere, and that was something she failed to ignore. "Fine," she finally hissed with hateful venom dripping from the sharply-spitten word she uttered, aimed with the utmost malice toward the changeling. Glaring at him as though looks could kill, she slowly lowered her pitchfork from the changeling's throat, but made sure to scrape its tip lightly against his chitinous hide without hurting him as she removed it. Habeas and Peach Blossom sighed in mutual relief while Persica planted the pitchfork into the ground beside her. She glared at the changeling with a bellicose sort of animosity. "Get out of here changeling. Leave my house," she growled once more at him, pointing a hoof to the forest bordering her land. "Now." "I-I can't," Habeas managed to mumble, his voice still very much pained. "I would if I were able to, but my wings are too torn up to use. A-and... you sort of just hurt my a-already-broken leg pretty badly-" "No excuses!" Persica stomped her hoof to the ground, causing her unwanted guest to flinch. "Get out!" "Mom, he's too hurt to make it anywhere," Peach Blossom butted in once more, trotting up beside her friend before Persica could stop her and putting a hoof over his shoulder to help him back to his shaky feet. "Yesterday, he was barely able to stand. How can you just cast him out like this? How far will he go before he can't move any longer?" "Far enough to be away from here," retorted Persica, quite clearly showing her disdain for the changeling's condition. When Habeas was stable, Peach Blossom walked forth toward her mother, put her two hooves together, and gave Persica an innocent look that would warm the heart of a pony with even the most callous of souls. "Mom... can he stay here until he gets better? Pleeeaase?" she insisted in the most pitifully pleading voice she had ever performed; all in an effort to get her stern mother to relent. "He's been so well-behaved and nice so far. He's an honest and good changeling, I swear! I can't just watch you kick him out in this state. What if he... gets eaten by something? Or catches a terrible disease?" "Then good for us," Persica snorted. "'Good for us?'" repeated Peach Blossom, quite shocked by the sentence. "Mom, what would you do if he was a pony?" "He's not a pony," Persica dismissed dryly. "Then what would you do if he truly is a good being? Just because he's a changeling, would you let him walk off and die, alone in the forest, for no other reason?" "I would-" The mare could not finish her sentence. She found herself unable to bring forth the words she sought in front of her daughter. Peach Blossom could see her at the loss she came upon, and believing she finally found the proper reasoning within her mother, could not help but smirk triumphantly. A minute passed by as the crickets chirped in the field behind them with the peace restored, when Persica reluctantly relented at long last with a sigh that reverberated from her throat not unlike a wretched cough. She looked back at Habeas, and he stared at her with his teal eyes in turn, hopefully. "Get back in the barn, creature. You've been sleeping there, and that's where you'll keep sleeping. Just until you're strong enough to move out, but that's it!" "M-my name is Habeas. Habeas Brittle," he weakly said back, speaking in a more friendly manner to the pony in a way that he thought would lessen her ire toward him. He knew it was a vain attempt, but tried anyway. "I don't seem to care about whatever your name is at the moment," Persica huffed back as sourly as a carton of month-spoiled milk. "Now get in there like I said, before I change my mind." Lowering his head, Habeas did as he was told. Persica and Peach Blossom watched him collect his bearings and shuffle toward the barn on his three good legs after what felt like an hour, and just before he opened the door up with his mouth, the changeling managed to shift to the filly a look conveying nothing but gratitude. She returned it with a happy nod, before being rendered as still and unmoving as the air itself by a disapproving leer cast down by her parent. Persica returned her gaze back upon Habeas until he had vanished into the barn. "As for you, daughter," she began, turning to Peach Blossom and glaring at her with the same intimidating look as five seconds ago. "You let a changeling wander into our midst without telling me. Not only that, you've been caring for it with no concern for yourself whatsoever, and you lied to me when I questioned you. You're grounded for three months. Do you understand?" "I thought as much..." Peach Blossom mumbled to herself under her breath sadly, lowering her head. "I understand, Mom." "Good. Now get inside," Persica continued, but more lightly as her temper mollified, "and go back to bed. You have school in the morning, and don't think for one second that this changes any of that at all." Doing as she was told, the filly started to trudge inside the house, though with some hints of a positive strut in her stride at her victory in keeping Habeas both okay, and here. Persica noted them well, and could only shake her head in disagreement over this entire debacle. Changelings were nothing more than malefic fiends born and bred to steal the love of others until their hearts were just as dark and malevolently vile as their own. She knew that much, and she learned it quite clearly from her personal experiences. But the fact that this one; this strange, odd one had not harmed her dear Peach Blossom was a mystery in and of itself. Perhaps it was some excessively convoluted trick. Or perhaps her daughter was somehow right, and this creature's nature was an aberration from the rest of its kind. But knowing that she wouldn't think as clearly in her current tired state as she would come morning, she retired into her home behind her daughter. All in spite of the fact that she knew that she would most likely get zero sleep with the knowledge of what monster she was allowing to rest in her barn.