Eyes closed, breathing regulated, Shining focused on that sense of other inside her.
"Now open yourself. Relax and think towards that split. Wait. Wait. Your ears are prickling at the soft voice inside." Glimmer Wing remembered the moment she could first talk to her other self, and smiled despite her recent sour personality. "Perk your ears, listen to your inner voice."
'Are you there?' Shining waited, the silence of the room broken by a gentle whisper in her thoughts. Following the guide, she focused in on that.
'I am always here, Shining.' Vinyl Scratch's voice was distinct, if still soft. 'This is pretty cool.'
"You found her?"
Shining's head shot up at the voice to his left, looking at her teacher. "Yeah. She is soft, and I have to really focus on her." She couldn't hear Vinyl anymore, but she knew she was there. "What is going to happen? Aren't we supposed to lay our other selves?" The ideas seemed a little strange to Shining.
"You will, and soon. Keep quiet now, the others aren't quite as good at this as you are." Glimmer moved from Shining's side, scanning the room for other faces breaking into smiles.
About to go back into her trance, Shining barely touched Vinyl before feeling a mental hug from her. 'Do you have any idea why Thorax wants us to trick Glimmer Wing into sleeping with our pledge?'
There wasn't a physical body involved, and not even mental ones like the dream-scape, but she hugged Shining all the same. 'No clue. Maybe a prank? She probably could do with having that stick removed from her plot.'
The mental image caused Shining to cover her mouth with both forehooves. You are the worst! I almost lost it. No matter what Shining did, however, she couldn't get back into enough of a trance to talk to Vinyl again. She waited, watching Sweetie, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo, as one by one their faces lit up and they smiled widely.
"And there you have it. Within weeks all of you will finish your changes and lay your other half. They will take another few days to form properly before hatching." Glimmer gestured to a rapidly opening gap in the wall. "Go on to your caverns now."
'Now or never.' Shining walked up to Glimmer Wing, but was beaten to the punch by three bright-eyed nymphs.
"Miss Glimmer Wing…" Sweetie Belle looked up at the bigger changeling, scuffing one little black hoof on the ground. "I'm scared."
"What is it going to do? Will it rip out of me?" Scootaloo actually got some tears to form in her blue eyes, channeling the wheedling and terrified way she had seen Sweetie Belle use this.
"Even our brave vampony friend can't protect us…" Apple Bloom waved a hoof at Shining. "Will you keep us company tonight?"
One nymph, Glimmer could have brushed off. Two might have taken a little talking. With three little nymphs, and now a fourth looking near ready to blubber, she had no hope but to agree. "Don't you have…" She tried to fight their tears anyway, but when the fourth actually started to cry, she lost the battle. "All right. All right! But just this once."
Shining joined her fellow Crusaders in hugging the still-confused Glimmer. "Thank you!" They all chimed together.
"What about us?" Another little nymph walked over to the group clustered around Glimmer. "We are your pledge, you should keep us company too!" Two more nymphs joined them, voicing their assent.
For the first time it really sank in for Shining that these were all foals. All of them were young ponies snatched away from their family. A fire grew inside, a rage at what was happening here. Her blood (or what passed for blood in changelings) ran hot with an urge to do something.
"Hi, I'm Scootaloo." Stepping forward, Scootaloo held up a hoof to the three newcomers. "Pleased to meet you."
"H-Hello. My name's Pickle Beet." Pickle held out a hoof and clacked it to the offered one. "These are my sisters. We were… we were foalnapped just south of the Manehatten Hills." She looked to her sisters and smiled. "This is Silver, and Golden."
"Hey, I heard of you." Apple Bloom bounced forward. "My sister talked about distant kin living up north. I'm an Apple! Hey, Sweetie, come and meet the Beets."
"Are you okay? Vinyl, wasn't it?" Glimmer intruded on Shining's growing anger. "You should talk to them, they are going to need a big sister with her head on straight. I don't really count because I am a nasty bug-monster." She rolled her eyes.
"I… I guess. Doesn't it make you mad that all these foals are being foalnapped?" Shining gestured to the class. 'Wait, I can get angry? Maybe I can sneak away now, too?' Her revelation went unspoken.
"It…" Glimmer trailed off, her eyes going unfocused. She felt something pushing, shoving, making her unable to get angry at that particular thing. "It's none of your business!" In her confusion, she misdirected the anger and stormed out of the cave. 'Why can't I get mad at that?'
"Wait! Glimmer, are you okay?" Shining took off without thinking. "Glimmer, please slow down!" her little hooves pounded and brought her around and in front of her quarry. "What is wrong? Do you want to talk about it?" She knew how silly it looked, but it was all Shining could do.
Glimmer sighed and shook her head. "I am not going to take advice from a filly." She glared at Shining, before realization dawned. "But you're not a filly, are you. Alright, let's go back to your cave." The anger bled away quickly, but it was still inside her, still simmering.
Shining wanted to talk more, but held her own words—privacy was what they needed. She trotted along with Glimmer until the familiar cave wall opened up and both slipped in, barely beating the cave closing behind them.
"I don't know why." Glimmer flopped to the floor, dropping to her belly. "I am sorry I got angry at you, I am angry at myself." She lifted her head from the ground when a little body snuggled in at her side. "Who were you?"
"Why?" Shining looked up at the changeling who seemed so lost and alone. "Why should I tell you?" It just felt right to ask, it was one of the last things she had left, after all.
"Because I can't remember who I am." Glimmer lay her head out again and closed her eyes. "I don't know when it happened, but I can't even remember which changeling foalnapped me and brought me here. I feel so lost and alone it hurts, and I just want… I want something of 'me' back."
"Vinyl Scratch. Shining Armor." Shining had no clue why she was telling Glimmer that, but she could feel that this wasn't a game. "I was born Shining Armor. Eventually big brother of Twilight Sparkle." She felt Glimmer shift a little. "From a young age I didn't feel completely set in stone. I saw the fillies playing their cute games, and tried to join in. It didn't work at first, because I was a 'stupid colt.' "
Glimmer turned her head so she was almost nose-to-nose with the nymph.
Shining appreciated the interest. "I learned ways to look less colt-like. It worked a bit, kinda. A young colt can look like an older filly if he is clever. Then my sister found me, and she knew right away. She was the first of my family who met Vinyl Scratch, the young mare who was wild and did crazy things. Shining Armor joined the Royal Guard—"
"You are in the Royal Guard?" Glimmer's eyes flew open. "But…" She trailed off, restraining herself to hear the whole story.
"Shining Armor, that's me, joined the royal guard. Vinyl Scratch started sneaking out to nightclubs, started getting interested in wild music. Both of them met a mare that stole their hearts." Shining grinned, thinking of his Cady. "Vinyl was coming home one night from a club, when she found three fillies being foalnapped. You can guess the rest."
"You are in the guard?" Glimmer's eyes were wide, and she had been struggling to keep a lid on her questions. "You are in the guard and will be missed?" Her excitement grew.
"Yeah, but first, what do you know of yourself? Can you remember anything, Glimmer?" Shining looked at the drone. "Have you tried using your trances?"
Glimmer blinked in surprise at the turn-about. "Uh…" She fished for the words she wanted to use. "I haven't." She smiled a little. "You seemed to know what you were doing today, I don't suppose you could help?"
At just that moment, six little nymphs burst through an opening in the wall and crowded into the cave. Shining looked to Glimmer. "Tomorrow, before classes." She smiled widely.
"What're you two talking about?" Apple Bloom stifled a yawn as she neared Shining and Glimmer.
"I was telling Glimmer all about the wubs." Shining felt comfortable that it wasn't actually a lie. "She heard about how I was a vampony from someling, and she wanted to know everything." Shining rolled to her back and startled cycling her hole-filled hooves in the air.
"What are 'wubs'?" Golden Beet yawned, trapped in the vicious cycle of yawn-contagion that left no survivors. She spared a look back to her sisters.
Pickle looked between Silver and Golden. "Don't look at me like that. Of course we are all going to snuggle together; it's way too cold to lay in two different piles." Despite her sure words, she flung looks to the other nymph, and then to Glimmer.
Glimmer smiled to Pickle, but leaned her snout to Shining's ear. In a soft whisper she murmured, "Bringing me here was a ruse, but why?" Curiosity bit more than annoyance at being manipulated.
"To help somepony," Shining stressed the word, "I thought could use it." She closed her eyes and yawned too, the big front-fangs arcing forward.
In barely a few moments, all the nymphs were cuddled around Glimmer, and she felt the weight of sleep coming to her. Vinyl Scratch was still a conundrum to her, their story having generated more questions than it solved. As she drifted off to sleep, she realized that it wasn't Shining who had started the ruse to get her to sleep here, but the other three.
~~~~~+++++~~~~~
Thorax slipped into the cave; it had been a long night so far. She buzzed her wings as softly as she could, but her own four nymphs knew the sound. Eight blue eyes lifted and looked at Thorax.
Shining couldn't help the soft thump her tail made at seeing Thorax. She blinked and tilted her head to Glimmer Wing. 'I haven't even trusted Thorax with my secret, why did I tell Glimmer? Well, I hope whatever Thorax has planned, works.'
Walking carefully around the nymphs, Thorax was pleased to see three new little changelings nestled against Glimmer. 'I hope you can remember who you were. I hope this works.' She settled down and focused on her body. Squirming a little, she snuggled closer to the other changelings and hoped she could repeat what had happened to the nymphs the previous night.
~~~~~+++++~~~~~
Glimmer woke, feeling warm and comfortable. Her head tingled with an odd happiness that seemed impossible to deny. Lifting her jaw, she yawned widely. 'I should sleep beside more changelings more often, I haven't felt this good since…' Glimmer's eyes went wide and she stared ahead.
"Mmm." Shining turned and squirmed around to face the 'ling that had woken beside her. "Morning." Cracking her eyes open, Shining saw Glimmer's shock. "Are you alright?"
"I…" Glimmer trailed off a little, her mouth working without any sound coming out. "I can remember… some…" She turned to look at Shining, and spotted Thorax too. The world collapsed inwards on Glimmer. She stared at Thorax, as the other changeling stirred from sleep. "Th-Th-Thorax?" She turned to look at them, only getting a few flashes of her memory, but it was enough to remind her of one thing. "Thorax…" longing tainted her tone, "I have missed you so much!"
"You are back?" Thorax fell sideways as Glimmer tackled her. She stared up at the confused smile. "Well, some of you is. You remember us?"
Glimmer nodded. "I remember us parting, I remember laying you, and you hatching. I remember…" She trailed off as an old terror threatened to swallow her.
"Shh. We can work on it more. I have learned a trick, my Sunny." Thorax booped Glimmer on the nose. "I have a secret, something entirely new for you to remember." She waited for Glimmer to nod to her before leaning up and whispering right in Glimmer's ear. "I am growing into a queen."