Raj took a draw from his cup with shaky hands. A brief surge of pain shot up his limb and he winced, almost dropping the cup. He glanced around, checking to see if anyone else saw the moment, and set it down on the step.
Another quartet of patrolling guards moved past the library in lockstep, lantern-hooked poles illuminating their path, each one looking resplendent and perfect in their gleaming plate and fanned helms. The one in the lead gave him a nod and Raj didn't return it.
Spike came out of the door behind him and sat on the step at his side. “Hey.” he said.
“Hey.” Raj said back.
They sat in companionable silence, watching the streetlights come on across the night-blanket town as it came to grips with what had happened.
* * *
It's been a while.
It's been a long while.
* * *
A plated guard stepped out of a house, a limp form draped along his back. He crouched low and slid the victim onto a blanket, her coat still slick with changeling ichor. She stirred weakly, one eye sliding open and swirling around drunkenly.
Squealing and crying, a unicorn foal broke from the pony holding her and sprinted forward, tears streaming from her eyes. Ignoring the slick ooze she hugged her mother, screaming and crying in fear and relief. The mare seemed to come back to life somewhat and wrapped a wing around her foal, starting to cry as well.
The guard nodded and trotted back in as another victim was hauled into the noon sun.
* * *
It was twelve, a total of twelve were taken by ten changelings, alternating disguises and harvesting love to resist the cold. As far as could be told, they'd been hiding in town for more than two weeks. Each of the other victims was cocooned in the basement of the house Twilight found Sweetie Drops in.
They're getting better, but it's rough. Long term exposure to changeling venom has nasty side effects. It will likely be years before the victims are fully recovered.
They got lucky.
* * *
“... and it was then that I was attacked by three changeling infiltrators. Both ponies I was speaking with struck and distracted me from the table I was near which revealed itself to be a changeling very gifted in shapechanging. I was bitten and subsequently defeated in the ensuing fight.” Bon-Bon/Sweetie Drops said with an exhausted sigh. Raj finished penning the report and flipped it around to show her. She nodded her assent and looked out the window at the setting sun, “Send it off.”
Raj folded it and tucked it away for the next time he saw Spike. “So what now?”
The earth pony adjusted herself on the bed, “Now, well, I think I'm done. Twilight knows my cover and there's no way the Princess will erase her memory of me, not her favored pupil. So, I'm scrubbed.
“So you'll retire?” Raj asked.
She laughed, “S.M.I.L.E is incredibly discretionary, retired agents don't retain any potentially harmful information. My memories of my service will be removed and I'll be placed somewhere far off with an implanted identity.” She looked down at her hooves. “I hope it's not the mountains, I hate the mountains.”
“That seems excessive.”
“That's the job. I knew it was going to happen someday when I signed up. You should be fine, you're in a different chain of command and I don't see Luna giving the okay to having her captain wiped.”
Raj paused, “Well, you could be part of that too Bon-Bon.”
“Sweetie Drops.”
“Whatever. I'm the Captain of the Lunar Guard, I have the right to conscript anyone I want. If I bring you in, you get to keep your memories and your place in town. You'll be the head of intelligence for the Lunar Guard, and we need some intelligence.”
She smirked, “Obvious joke.”
“Yeah.” They were quiet for a beat. “Sweetie Drops, I'm gonna need someone like you. Someone with your skills, if I'm going to do what I need to.”
She looked at him squarely, “What are you going to do?”
“You know.” He said flatly.
She nodded at him. She knew full well. “I'm in.”
* * *
Winter-Wrap Up is screwed to the nines. Half the town is still covered in snow, animals are waking up in flooded burrows, and farmers are struggling to pick seeds from ground that is freezing back over. It will be months before the consequences of the delay can even be fully assessed.
Applejack spent hours trying to wrangle work crews that were terrified their own shadows might be changelings, Fluttershy filling her entire house with displaced wildlife, Rarity writing to every contact and acquaintance she had trying to get weather workers to come to town, and Rainbow Dash wasn't properly visible the whole afternoon and evening she had been moving so fast. Even Pinkie Pie was pushing a plow, albeit one festooned in glitter and bouquets of candy canes.
I get it. They need to keep moving, stay on task. Because the moment they take a seat and pause to think, it'll destroy them.
Just like it did to me.
* * *
Raj slammed the door on the adhoc jail, early afternoon light spilling through the thin window illuminating a mob of writhing, spitting bug-monsters. One of them pressed itself to the viewport of the door and lolled its tongue obscenely. Raj grimaced and stepped back, another flare of venom-induced pain hitting him like a hurled brick. He turned back to Twilight, “Anything from that one?”
“No, nothing new.” She said back as she applied a pack of ice to her horn. “We still don't know what their overall goal was.”
It's been the exercise of many hours, scanning the minds of captured changelings to glean whatever they could. However, whatever hive mind the creatures possessed had gotten them to go on complete lockdown, shutting out all of Twilight's attempts to pry open their minds.
Raj was about to try and grab the first one again when Spike said it.
“Hey guys, there's smoke coming from the Everfree.”
* * *
It's obvious in retrospect. It was obvious at the time.
We should have known.
* * *
Raj followed the line of smoke, the straight line leading him on a path that was horribly familiar. Dread sunk into his gut, feeling cold and flinty. He threw a glance at Rainbow Dash and was able to read the same feeling there. Her wings twitched as she flew next to him, eager to range ahead but the training they'd shared held her in check.
They were able to see the glow from a distance, turning the dread into outright panic. Raj broke into a loping run, slipping on the wet snow and mud as Rainbow zipped ahead in a streak of color. When Raj caught up, she was on the ground, staring in horrified shock.
Zecora's hut was ablaze.
* * *
She lived alone.
Far from the town.
Why didn't we think to check?
* * *
Raj took a second to look at it in horror before he tore his gaze away and pushed Rainbow and shouted, “Dash!”
Rainbow shook herself back to the moment and flapped into the air, zipping away in a streak. He wanted to ask what she was doing but there wasn't time.
Raj stalked closer to the tree, squinting from the heat and smoke. He shouted Zecora's name and lifted a boot. He struck the door hard enough to shatter the fire-weakened wood and rush of fire burst out at him, the powerful blaze eager for even more air. Raj stepped back, hissing in pain. He tried to see the inside, but everything inside was invisible behind a screen of smoke and fire.
He drew his axes and started pulling pieces out, heat blistering his skin. A shout came from above and he looked up to see Rainbow pushing a cloud as dark as pitch. She hovered it over the burning hut and gave it a solid kick, drawing a gush of water from it.
The downpour chilled Raj to the bone in an instant, but he didn't retreat. He grabbed the sputtering and steaming timbers and hauled them back, clearing a path as Rainbow beat a hole in the roof to the let the flow in.
Raj stepped in grabbed a fallen beam and tossed it. He looked down into the flooded trinkets and reagents, and there she was.
* * *
It was for the Alicorn Amulet. An artifact some magician used to take over the town that Zecora had been holding onto for safe keeping. That's what the whole infiltration was about.
They were gathering information, trying to find out where the thing was. The changelings probably assumed one of the elements still had it, probably Twilight, so they were probing very carefully. They were likely hoping to steal it without anyone noticing.
But then their cover was blown, and they were forced to do this.
To kill Zecora to get it.
* * *
Raj stumbled from the burned and steaming hut, holding her tight. He screamed for help, his numb and burned hands useless to do anything.
There was a flash of light and they were there, all five ponies and Spike. They saw him kneeling in the snow and their faces went horrified. Fluttershy was the first to move, pulling her body to the floor and checking her over. Raj let her, falling back and kicking away.
A second later, her hooves went limp and she started to cry.
* * *
As far as I can tell, they ambushed her.
We found two dead changelings nearby, one covered in acid burns and the other partially eaten by hundreds of tiny creatures. Zecora had bites on her, seemingly from the same changeling. My guess is that the three we missed approached in disguise, got her outside. Either she twigged to the lie or they weren't able to get a direct bite on the first try. Either way, she fought like a demon and put two of them down before the poison got to her. From there the last one dragged her inside and dosed her until it could tease out where the amulet was. It took it and burned the hut down to try and cover its tracks.
I pray that the thing finished her off before running, but there were no cuts, no mortal wounds on her besides the burns. She was alive when the fire started, and it killed her.
Zecora burned to death because I was too fucking stupid.
* * *
“Put her here.” Twilight said, her tone grey.
Raj stepped past and down into the basement of the library. The space was chilly, hopefully enough to preserve her until they could figure out what to do next.
He went back to the main floor where the others waited. Applejack looked at him and nodded. He gave it back and she slumped. “... Got dang it. Dang it all.” She slid her hat off and pressed it to her chest. “I just remembered, I gotta tell Applebloom. This's gonna destroy that poor little filly, she loved Zecora.”
“We all did.” Rarity sniffled. “We weren't close, but somehow she was always so... confident. I always wanted to try and use some of that for a show.” Rarity smiled slightly and then it fell. “I suppose it's too late for that now.”
“She was always willing to help me with critters from the Everfree. She never asked for anything in return.” Fluttershy whispered.
“She took me in when Trixie took over the town and helped me get her out. I never had any idea she knew so much about magic.” Twilight said.
“She always shared what she had. I never met anypony who worked so hard to make Nightmare Night fun for everypony.” Pinkie said as she brushed her straightened locks out of her face.
“She saved my life.” Raj said flatly.
“She was awesome.” Rainbow rasped.
Raj nodded and looked down at the stippled bite on his hand. “Yeah, yeah she was.”
* * *
Zecora was my friend.
She was the first one I met in this insane world and she saved my life. She gave me help when there was not reason to, when I was nothing more to her than another mangy thing in a hellish forest. She gave me my first faltering steps in this world, took care of me when there was nobody else who could.
One hour. Sixty minutes. That's how long she'd been dead when we got to her. That was after we caught the others, after I'd been back on my feet. I knew she was alone, I knew she was vulnerable. I didn't even go to tell her about the things in town. Everyone else was working while I sat on my ass doing nothing.
Her death is on me.
* * *
Raj and Spike sat there a long time, well until the stars came out and the town had laid down to sleep.
Rajrishi stared at the flickering street light across the way, the magic inside pulsing in a dull rhythm, a few of the newly hatched spring insects circling the warm orb.
After a long, long while, Spike asked him, “This is going to be bad, isn't it?”
Raj waited a second and stared at the fitfully cold insects. “Yeah.”
* * *
I'm gonna kill them. I'm gonna kill all of them.
Every. Last. One.