//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10 
// Story: Thrown Abroad 
// by Niaeruzu 
//------------------------------//

“Rise an’ shine, sleepyhead,” Applejack said as she opened the barn doors.

No response.

She walked over to the improvised bed in the corner of the barn. Suncloak was still in bed, but he wasn’t moving. She poked it for good measure.

“Go ‘way,” the changeling mumbled. “Not feeling well.”

Applejack chuckled. “That party too much for ya? Ya’ll get used to it, promise.” She started tugging on his sheet. “Now come on, there’s stuff to be done.”

Suncloak stuck out his tongue as he rolled out of bed. “Yegh. Took too much love.”

“Ya can do that?” Applejack asked while she scratched the back of her head.

“Of course,” the changeling answered. “A pony eats too much food, they get a stomach ache. A changeling takes too much love, they get a stomach ache.” He wasn’t entirely sure he should call this an ache, though. He had been near starvation the night before, but the ponies had given him some love in the form of friendship. When he got back to the party, however, there were several hundred ponies, all of which interested in a changeling who managed to become friends with the Elements of Harmony.

Several hundred ponies who were all too eager to give little bits of that same love to him. Love which he had taken, since it was meant for him. No sense in letting that go to waste, right?

Well, that was what he thought then. It was an all-you-can-eat buffet, and he took pretty much all of the food. Turns out it was pretty stupid, since he now had the mother of all stomach aches. Or a stomach implosion. He couldn’t really tell the difference.

On the plus side, he finally wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Makes sense,” Applejack said. “Now come on. Ya’ll feel better later.”

Suncloak sure hoped so. He started to put his cloak on, but paused as he looked at the white blanket. Applejack had given him a replacement blanket for the night, since he’d given the things he took when he first entered Ponyville back to their owners. Fluttershy’s rag, Rainbow Dash’s sunglasses and Rarity’s safety pin. He didn’t need those anymore, since all the ponies in Ponyville knew he was a changeling now.

Still, it felt weird to go outside without his cloak. So did talking to ponies without wearing a disguise, and so did having love handed to him. A lot of things felt weird right now.

“Uh, right. No disguise needed anymore,” he said. “What did you need me for?”

“Pinkie Pie just came by,” the orange earth pony answered, “she told me to get you and head for Carousel Boutique, ‘cause there’s a surprise.”

Suncloak shot her a deadpan look. “Is it another party?”

Applejack made a motion, as if zipping her lips. “Can’t tell ya. It’s a surprise.” Right. What a lousy Element of Honesty.

“Whatever, let’s go,” the changeling said as he started moving outside. It would’ve gone a lot faster if the sun wasn’t so bright, though. And the smells in the air weren’t doing him any good, either. The soft, sweet smell of the love of friendship was making him nauseous, but it was slightly muted by a subtle, sour scent in the air. It felt familiar, but he couldn’t really figure out why. “Something smells bad. I thought we cleaned up?”

Applejack sniffed the air. “Ah only smell hay. Ya sure ya aren’t smellin’ some kinda love again?”

“No, this isn’t love. I’ll figure it out,” Suncloak said as they left.


Not much later, they arrived at Carousel Boutique. The other Elements of Harmony were there, waiting for Suncloak and Applejack to arrive. Pinkie Pie seemed to be rather energetic for some reason.

Well, more so than usual.

What Suncloak was more interested in, was the fact that Rarity was there as well. A perfect opportunity to see if he completely understood what friendship was about.

He cleared his throat as he approached her. “Rarity, according to my changeling standards, you are the most revolting and hideous thing I have ever seen, but according to pony standards, I guess you are very pretty.” There, both honest and kind. Friendship is simple!

Rarity gave him a confused look. “Uh... Th-thank you? I think?” She turned to Fluttershy and whispered, “Was that an insult or a compliment?”

Fluttershy simply shrugged. “I don’t know,” she whispered back.

“Regardless,” Rarity said as she turned to Suncloak again, “we have something to show you!”

“But we can’t tell what it is yet,” Pinkie Pie said whilst bouncing up and down in front of the changeling, “because it’s a surprise! And it’s a really really really really really really-”

Rainbow Dash cut the hyperactive pony off by jamming a hoof in her mouth. “Sheesh Pinkie, calm down.” She removed her hoof while she said, “But it’s pretty cool, yeah.”

“Well, let’s go and take a look,” Twilight said.

“Hold on,” Suncloak said. He sniffed the air a few times. That sour scent was still hanging in the air, but it was slightly stronger now.

“Ya smellin’ that same stuff again, Suncloak?” Applejack asked.

The ponies all smelled the air. “I don’t smell anything,” Twilight stated. The others nodded in confirmation.

Okay, so it was something only he could smell. It wasn’t love, since love always smelled sweet. He raised one hoof and smelled his own body. No, that wasn’t it either. “It’s...” he started. What was it? Something only a changeling could smell, but it wasn’t love. Then it had to be... “another changeling.”

“Another changeling?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Is it somepony you know?”

“No idea,” Suncloak answered. He sniffed the air a few times. “I think it’s coming from the forest. Or somewhere nearby.”

Pinkie Pie loudly gasped. “You know what this means?! A new changeling means a new friend! Let’s go look for him!” She sped off towards the Everfree Forest before anyone could object.

Twilight gave Suncloak a questioning look. “Let’s go to the forest,” the changeling told her.


A few minutes, a lot of smelling, and some pathfinding later, they had found the other changeling. Currently, they were looking at him while sitting in a bush. To the ponies, he looked identical to Suncloak, but Suncloak himself could tell numerous differences. Slight variation in eye color, amount of holes in the hooves, things like that.

“Right, you six stay here, I’ll go talk to him,” he said, before stepping out of the bush. He cleared his throat rather loudly, causing the other changeling to turn around, and said, “State occupation, rank, and business.” Short and to the point, just like he would’ve done if he was still a royal guard.

“Strike team four, number 21, ranked third, currently on my way to scout the village just ahead,” the other changeling said. “Who’re you?” he asked. “Wait,” he said, getting closer to Suncloak to inspect him. “Aren’t you the one who was banished a few days ago?”

Oh, great, so news was getting around. Which wasn’t exactly surprising, since banishment from the hive doesn’t happen very often. “Yes,” he answered, “so I technically have no name, rank or objective.”

“Whoooaaa,” #21 said, throwing a hoof around Suncloak’s neck. Great, one of the overly touchy changelings. “We didn’t think you’d still be walking around right now.” Apparently, he wasn’t one of the overly subtle changelings. “How’re you doing, buddy?”

Suncloak shrugged him off. “That doesn’t matter. You said you were scouting?” Scouting usually meant two things: either he was heading to Ponyville to keep a few ponies under surveillance, or he was checking to see if it was a good feeding ground.

“Yeah, I got orders and stuff saying I need to check if the village is safe for us changelings and whatnot. There’s a few of us nearby and we could kinda use some dinner,” #21 answered. “But now that you’re here, you can just tell me, and then we can go back to the hive! I’ll just explain everything and then you’ll be accepted back in nice and easy. I’m not ranked third in my team for nothing.”

Back to the hive? So he could leave Ponyville and its annoying ponies and confusing friendship behind? Suncloak shot a look back to the bush where the six ponies were hiding. They were silent, but looked expectantly at him. “Uh, I don’t know,” he mumbled to himself.

“Oh come on, don’t dawdle like that.” #21 took hold of one of Suncloak’s hooves and started pulling him in what was probably the direction of the hive. Suncloak didn’t budge, however. “We go back to the hive, and then you can do... whatever it was you did, and take love from those dumb ponies and junk. You managed to do that without changing your appearance, so we can get everyling together and suck those ponies dry!”

Suncloak pulled his hoof back. “No.”

“What, ‘no’?” #21 asked indignantly. “Did you get a few holes in your brains?”

“No, I didn’t take love from these ponies,” Suncloak answered. This guy was seriously annoying. “I didn’t steal it either. And they aren’t as dumb as you think, either.” Sure, they weren’t all as smart, but they’d certainly turned out a lot more clever than he thought.

#21 gave him a confused look. “Wait, wait, wait. What’re you talking about? You didn’t take or steal love? Ponies aren’t dumb? Did you hit your head?”

Actually, yes, and repeatedly at that. “They gave me love, even though they know I’m a changeling. They’re friendly and forgiving, but they’re also clever and shrewd, if they want to be.”

“So a pony fell in love with you?” #21 asked. “How’d you do that?”

Suncloak slapped himself in the face with a hoof. “No, not like that. They wanted to be friends with me. Apparently, that comes with its own brand of love.”

#21 looked at him for a moment, then gave a short laugh. “Okay, you had me going there for a while. You just look so serious! Now let’s go,” he said, as he started pulling on one of Suncloak’s hooves again.

“No,” Suncloak said again. “I’m not in a good mood, so go away.” He could hear a grinding sound somewhere. Oh, those were his teeth. This conversation was getting seriously aggravating.

“I thought you were never in a good mood,” #21 quipped.

Suncloak stuck his face forward, making it so he was about an inch away from the other changeling’s face. “I thought you liked having all of your teeth in your mouth,” he said with a growl.

#21 let go of Suncloak’s hoof, and backed away slightly. “But-”

“I’m not that smart, and I’m not always very nice,” Suncloak said, cutting the other changeling off. “But these ponies accepted me anyway, when they could’ve locked me up instead. Give me one good reason to go back to a hive filled with jerks rather than stay in a village filled with ponies who would like to be my friend.”

“Oh come on, a changeling can’t be friends with ponies! I’ve never even heard of that before. It’s silly and stupid. A changeling belongs with other changelings, that’s how it works,” #21 reasoned. It sounded like incredibly dumb reasoning, which was to be expected, honestly.

“If everyling back at the hive is this moronic, I’d rather stay here in Ponyville,” Suncloak said swiftly. He glanced back to the bush where his new friends were still watching. “Here, I’m Suncloak, and not just another royal guard. It feels right being here.”

“So...” #21 took a few steps back. “You sure you don’t want to go back to the hive? You actually want to stay here?”

Suncloak shot him an annoyed look. “I’d rather cut down a really big tree with a herring than go back to the hive.”

#21 tried walking around him, but found his path blocked by Suncloak. “Hey, what gives? I still have a job to do!”

“No, you don’t,” Suncloak said, getting up close to the other changeling again. “You’re going to turn tail and go back to the hive. Tell them that if anyling, and I mean anyling, gets close to this village again,” He prodded the other changeling’s chest with a hoof, pushing him to the ground. “I’ll throw them out myself. Got that?”

#21 meekly nodded. He seemed to be trying to stand up, but Suncloak’s hoof on his chest kept him down. “Yessir,” he swiftly spoke.

“Good,” Suncloak said as he withdrew his hoof. “Now scram, you white grub!” he yelled.

#21 left so fast that he left little dust clouds in his wake.

As Suncloak turned to leave, he saw the six ponies behind him leave their hiding place. “Whoa, ya weren’t a royal guard for nothin’, I guess,” Applejack said.

“You sure showed him who’s boss, Suncloak!” Rainbow Dash jubilantly said.

“Are you sure that was a good idea?” Twilight asked.

A good idea? Eating something sweet after dinner was a good idea. Challenging an entire hive of changelings, on the other hoof, was not. As far as good ideas went, it ranked all the way at the bottom, somewhere between ‘releasing Discord from his stone prison’ and ‘paint yourself white’.

Suncloak shook his head as he walked past them. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a good idea or not. I’m staying here, and that’s that.” Honestly speaking, he was somewhat worried, but also oddly satisfied. “You wanted to show me something, right?”

“Oh, of course,” Fluttershy said timidly. “Your surprise. Um, let’s go?”

They all agreed, and went to... whatever that surprise would be. Hopefully, it’d be better than meeting another changeling.


Not much later, they reached a broad street, some distance away from Ponyville’s center. They stopped at about the halfway point of the street, where Twilight pointed to one rather small house. “Tadaah!”

Suncloak arched an eyebrow. “Uh, what am I looking at?” he said after a few seconds.

“It’s a house. Duh,” Rainbow Dash said with a roll of her eyes. Thank you, Rainbow Dash. Next, she’d say something incredibly profound like ‘you’re standing on a road’ or ‘there are clouds in the sky’.

Before Suncloak could give a snarky reply, Rarity said, “I happened to know that this house has been vacant for some time. I thought this would be just perfect!”

Suncloak’s eyebrow arched a bit higher. “Perfect for what? What’re you talking about?”

“Well, ya can’t sleep in the barn forever,” Applejack said. Really? The barn would be fine, honestly. There was a bed and it was pretty roomy. What more does a changeling need? Well, there was the whole being woken up early thing, but he could probably ignore that in the future. Actually, more things would require ignoring in the future. Possibly Pinkie Pie.

“We thought you’d like your own place to live, and, um, it seemed like a nice house,” Fluttershy softly spoke.

Suncloak’s other eyebrow decided to join the other up on his forehead, probably because it felt lonely. “Wait, you did, but, I don’t even... Uh... A house! Sunday!” he said, waving his hooves in the general direction of said house.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter that it’s sunday. The ponies at the town hall were surprisingly lenient when they considered I was the personal student of Princess Celestia,” Twilight said as she levitated a set of keys out of her mane.

“I don’t know what to say,” Suncloak said. He really didn’t, which was pretty aggravating. Did he really deserve this? And if he didn’t, how could he possibly make up for it? He felt indebted now. Ugh. He just decided to hold his hoof out to accept the keys.

“Well, here are the keys. Why don’t you take a look inside?” Twilight said as she dropped the keys into Suncloak’s hoof.

With a clatter, the keys fell on the ground. Suncloak shot an angry look towards his own hoof. The keys had fallen through one of the holes, apparently. “Stupid holes. One day, I’m going to buy a ton of corks, paint them black, and put them in there. Why do I even have these stupid things?!”

Twilight chuckled slightly. “Sorry.” Well, she couldn’t actually be blamed. Not every day that she’d give things to a changeling.

Suncloak picked up the keys and walked to the front door of the house. His house. That felt kind of weird, actually. Changelings lived together in a hive, so a place to call his own was... Odd, to say the least. “What’s next, a housewarming party?” he joked aloud.

As soon as he opened the door, he was assaulted by a combination of noise, confetti, and streamers, knocking him backwards. From his new location on the ground, the changeling grumbled and looked at Pinkie Pie.

Said pink pony was grinning from ear to ear. “Do you like it, Sunny?”

Rarity, on the other hoof, looked wide-eyed at the party pony. “Pinkie? How did you put all of that in the house? You didn’t have anything with you when we came to see the house this morning and now you...” She sighed and looked at the mess on the doorstep. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

Suncloak sighed and agreed. Whatever Pinkie Pie does, don’t question it. That was at least one thing he had learned. He had to laugh when he realized that he had just accepted that someling had done something that made no sense at all.

“I think I put a teensy bit too much force behind it, though,” Pinkie Pie said. No kidding. “Sorry. I don’t want to hurt anypony for a laugh.”

Suncloak stood up, dusted himself off and pulled a streamer out of his ear. Oddly, he felt like just outside of his vision, someling was watching him and laughing at his misfortune.

Someling should really stop doing that.

“It doesn’t matter,” Suncloak said as he stepped into his house, and took a look around on the ground floor.

Like it had seemed from the outside, it was a pretty small building. Through the front door was a kitchen, followed by a living room. Fortunately, there was already furniture. A couch and a few chairs surrounded a small table. There was a dining table surrounded by a few chairs as well, but he probably wouldn’t need that very often. Or did he, now that he had friends? There were also plenty of windows, which made it feel a lot different from the dark changeling hive.

The living room was connected to a little hallway, where there was a door to the back yard, which was little more than grass. There was also a trapdoor, leading to an empty basement. A narrow flight of stairs lead to the first floor.

Up on the first floor were a bathroom with the usual equipment, and a bedroom with a bed, a closet and a single window.

“So, what do you think?” Rainbow Dash asked him.

Suncloak tapped his chin with a hoof. “It’s...” Horrid, tacky, cramped, awful. He could think of a ton of words to describe the building. It felt so different from the sleeping rooms in the changeling hive. This was all light, fluffy and inviting, where the hive was all dark, dank and foreboding.

He opened the window and took a look outside. Ponies were walking around, going about their usual sunday routines. Some ponies he didn’t recognize from the party saw him and hurried on to where they were going. Well, he couldn’t blame them. He’d probably have done the exact same thing.

However, some other ponies saw him looking out of the window and smiled at him. The Cutie Mark Crusaders even passed by in their scooter-and-cart combination, waving at him and shouting a greeting he didn’t quite understand. Suncloak merely waved back.

He looked behind him. Six ponies were standing there. Probably six of the most famous and important ponies in Equestria. Six ponies who were willing to become his friend. A changeling’s friend.

The changeling hadn’t been particularly nice to them behind their backs. And then, when he was at his lowest point, they had the perfect chance to get rid of him. But they did not, and instead decided to help him.

A large smile crept across his face as he found the perfect word to describe what he thought.

“It’s home.”










And that's it for Thrown Abroad! But don't worry (unless you didn't like this, then you probably should), I still want to continue writing about Suncloak. It just won't be in this story. Anyway, here are some people who are really, really awesome:

Noble Cause: 'cause he's 'my' pre-reader for Equestria Daily. When I saw that this story was greenlighted, it was probably one of the happiest moments I've had in a long, long time. It takes a special kind of amazing to be this amazing!

Bob from Bottles: Because he helped me out with a few errors in the earlier chapters in the story, making them much more polished now. Any help in writing is always cool!

Everyone in the Dutch Bronies IRC: For putting up with my endless fawning over how well this fic was doing, and for giving me a lot of motivation to write further. And for giving me the idea to submit to Equestria Daily in the first place. Sorry for being so annoying, hehe.

Everyone who favourited, rated and commented: Yes, about all 1000 of you. Ho-ly manure, did I not expect this to take off as it did. Every time I had a notification, it motivated me that much more to write this story, and try and make it better with every chapter. I hope I did well, and I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Edit: You can now find the sequel, My Little Changeling: Friendship is Weird, right here! If you enjoyed this story, chances are you'll enjoy that as well!