//------------------------------//
// A Rock and a Rounder 
// Story: Changing Ways 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

Sandbar shivered alone, hugged himself in the cold. His teeth clacked and clattered, his hooves were quarter-of-the-way numb, and his mind was in all sorts of places as he mumbled and muttered a dozen unrelated things to himself.
The little shed was cramped, filled with books and tools. He could still smell the new paint on it. His tireless eyes saw bobbleheads of the Princesses, patches of lawns, plans for new windows, and toolboxes hanging from the ceiling. There were no windows and only one wooden door.
He bent down to look through the gap at the bottom.
It was dark outside. The snow was still mostly white.
Sandbar quietly opened a shelf, took out a can of beans in tomato sauce. He smashed it open and chugged it down. Wiped his dirty red lips, his tongue tasting the rather dry liquid and the mushy, lifeless beans.
“Hope they find me, hope they find me…” he repeated to himself in a hurried whisper, looking up at the ceiling and also hoping those toolboxes don't fall on him. “Hope I'm not mistaken for a changeling, please….”
Then, he creaked the door open a little.
In the bleak darkness, he could see flashlights waving around, bright like spotlights.
He closed the door quietly. “That better be them! Did they...did they protect it? I didn’t hear any fighting....”
Sandbar lay down on the rough floor made of cement, slumped and sleepy.



Morning arrived. Sandbar could see everything clearer by the little light that did come in through the door’s gap; he even saw the dust particles strolling around. He looked down through the gap and saw the snow still mostly white, though now shining under the sun.
Sandbar pressed his teeth together and opened the cabinet again. He let his hoof search about, grabbed the first thing he felt, and found some freeze-dried apple slices sealed in their package.
“It's fine,” Sandbar said and popped those cold apples down his mouth. He drank some water from his bottle lying beside him.
“This is going to take a long time….”



Sandbar had his flashlight out in the night and was reading a book. Whispering to himself:
“’Sonore could never find the hidden treasure, but, as time went on, he found himself asking, “Was there really a treasure to begin with?” Slowly, he became mad, as the treasure eluded not only his hooves but his mind, for more questions plagued him: Was it real? Was it trying to hide? Was it meant to be wanted but never to be gotten, a perfect example in the tantalizing? Finally, after a dozen more years of such living, his friends found him dead, killed at the hooves of a guard pony who had to protect the museum he was guarding.’”
A knock on the door.
Sandbar closed the book, threw the flashlight under the table, and dashed his way under the table and hid himself under the cloth.
The door scratched open, revealing a pair of hoofsteps. Sandbar slowly lifted the cloth, saw two ponies walking about.
“That’s going to complicate things,” one pony said in a thick accent, “but we’ve got what we’ve got. We’ll know who’s the prisoners and who’s the changelings—you’re sure of that?”
“I am sure of that,” came the deliberate voice of Mudbriar.
Some clinks, and something dropped with a clang!
“If we’re gonna get out of this alive,” the first pony said, “we might have to try something drastic. We could try flooding the tunnels with this one right here—‘Special Pesticide! Guaranteed to Kill!’”
“An air spray pesticide would also harm our constituents and decrease their health, making them unprepared for future attacks.”
“Then what else do we have?” he asked pointedly. “Throw snow in their eyes, see if that works?”
“Throwing snow to their eyes would not help in distinguishing the ponies from the changelings when they are disguised.”
A pause. “Concussions, then?”
“We have discussed this before, but we are not ready to have regular concussion sessions for the sole purpose of weeding out disguised changelings since that will impair, both in the short- and the long-term, the mental faculties of our constituents.”
“Agh!” Slams. “Our most reliable weapon rendered useless!”
“The changelings have not, if my knowledge does not fail me, reached the deeper recesses," Mudbriar assured, "so it is highly unlikely that they have replaced our supplies of Zecora’s salve.”
“What else do we—“
Clink!
Bits rolling down to the floor, one right through the table’s cloth and landed in front of Sandbar’s face.
The pony-in-hiding shivered.
“Hey! Could you help me pick them up?”
A pause. “Yes.”
The two ponies bent and picked up the fallen coins, with the first pony counting each of them under his breath.
“That’s one...three...five, six, seven, eight...where’s the ninth?”
Mudbriar was silent for a while. “It appears that it has gone missing.”
“I know it’s missing! Come on, move around and look for it!”
Sandbar felt the sweat coming down his face, heard his heartbeart pumping.
A gray hoof lifted the cloth, revealing Mudbriar’s lanky face and nondescript mane.
The pony-no-longer-in-hiding bit his lip.
“This marks the fourth time that we have met, Sandbar.”



Sandbar, face splotched with the salve, sat before a little table where a lantern served as the cramped room’s sole source of pale light. There was nothing else in the room but three chairs on the brown and darkened ground. It smelled heavy like smoke. On the table was a measly portion of food: fresh hay, daisy sandwiches, and more canned beans.
Mudbriar sat there, his forehooves clasped over the table. “If I understand you correctly, you want to continue down South back to your post in Hard Keeper on your own during a time when changelings have begun infiltrating this base and may or may not be, as we speak, guarding the border.”
Sandbar nodded, keeping up a serious face for a serious leader. “They need me back there. Besides, I wasn’t planning to stay in Appleloosa long anyway. It’s just, things got loose, I got caught....”
Mudbriar blinked. “You do know that it is highly dangerous and extremely risky to venture such a move under the current circumstances?”
Sandbar nodded, more resolute this time. “I mean, I can try staying here, but then they’ll be worried about me. I’m their messenger pony, after all. Deliver messages, bring the news...without me, they’ll have to send someone else, and that’s another pony out.”
Mudbriar took a sip of his glass of water and continued to stare at his listener. “It is allowable. However, the risks are still great and we do not want to lose another pony to the changeling threat. I have to accompany you myself along with several others of my choosing until you reach the forest.”
“Anything, sir.”



The tracks continued on, going through the valley and vanishing into the darkened horizon of trees and thick vegetation. The chirps of crickets filled the night; a few fireflies flitted about, twinkling in and out.
Sandbar stood there. Behind him, four ponies, Mudbriar among them, all but Mudbriar himself fitted with makeshift wooden armor and helmet. Beyond, he could see the tall mountains reaching high up to the sky; he could see some dots moving about, probably ponies running up and down.
It was colder than before. Another breeze flew past them.
Sandbar turned around to face those four ponies, none of them smiling.  “Thanks for the rest, everypony. This might be the last you’ll see me, and it might be the last time I’ll see you, but—“
“You must start your journey immediately,” Mudbriar interrupted, raising a hoof as if to ask him to talk no further. “A changeling attack is imminent and we do not wish you to be taken down with this base when they commence.”
Sandbar began trotting forward, still looking at them. “Y-Yeah. I’ll just—“
Bumped into the trunk of a jackfruit tree.
A bunch of those heavy fruits snapped off their branch and fell on a stallion’s head.
He fell down, unconscious, complete with tongue sticking out.
A glow came upon him. Then: an unconscious changeling.
Mudbriar looked at the remaining ponies to his sides.
Sandbar recovered, rubbed his head, looked back.
There, Mudbriar’s aides glowed, revealed their changeling selves, and grabbed Mudbriar’s legs, restraining him with swift hooves.
“Go!” he cried out before a stack of hay was forced into his mouth.
Sandbar turned and galloped, feeling the cool of the jungle as he advanced. His heartbeat was back up to frightening levels, his eyes analyzed and re-analyzed every single thing that could slow him down and make him easy prey—only gasps and pants from this fleeing stallion.
Farther into the jungle, he could no longer be seen.



Sandbar panted, finally resting down at the trunk of some other big tree.
He looked up.
There, more jackfruits hanging by the trunk.
He sighed, barely able to see the night through the thick canopy of leaves. He could hear crickets chirping, crocodiles hissing and grunting.
Sandbar looked around him. He could not see much of the grass and the bushes that were there. No dirt paths were visible. Actually, it was packed, more trees and other tall plants blocking out a lot.
He sighed, noticed the twigs and branches about on the ground, and kicked the tree behind him.
More jackfruits fell, splashing on to the ground.



After a while, he found himself inside a hole covered by branches and twigs. He could see almost nothing, almost everywhere he turned registering pitch black for his vision. Beside him were the jackfruits he could still get from the tree.
Cramped, cold, dirty.
“OK, let’s assess the situation I got myself into,” Sandbar whispered to himself. “One, the changelings have basically taken over all of Equestria. Two, they’re clearing out the bases here as fast as they can. Three, if I don’t move, I’ll find myself in changeling territory, but if I do move under the night, I’m going to run the risk of getting caught by a changeling scout.”
He sighed.
“This is going to be another long night—“
Light flooding in.
Sandbar covered his eyes.
“Found ya’!” a voice shouted.
Sandbar looked up. “Gallus?!”
“Told you I was gonna make it out of there,” he said, pointing a cocky claw to himself, popping more of his head into view. He was holding an old flashlight. “And you had your doubts!”
“But they got hold of you!” Sandbar shouted, though did his best to keep it as quiet as he could. “How did you get out?”
“Fight, duh." Gallus rolled his eyes. "You think I was going to be free staying quiet?”
Sandbar smiled. “Yeah, at least you’re with—“
Then, he hesitated.
“How do I know it's really you, Gallus?”
Gallus arched a brow up. “What do you mean?”
“Well, how were you able to get to this spot and hear me speaking?”
Gallus tapped his chin. “Lucky guess?”
Sandbar narrowed his eyes, gave him a mean look.
“Alright, alright—I got to the forest hours ago, but it took me a while to find you. I guessed you were headed this way; all those changelings aren’t giving you a chance to move up.”
“Still, this is a big jungle,” Sandbar said, raising his suspicion. “What are the odds of finding me?”
“Don’t ask me,” Gallus said. “I’m not the maths guy.”
“Me, either.”
Gallus looked smug. “You didn’t suggest putting the green stuff on me.”
Sandbar’s eyes glowed a bit before returning to their dreary state. “I don’t have any and the stuff I do have is already on my body.”
“Does it work twice?” Gallus said, now poking his head into the hole.
“No, it doesn’t.”
Gallus moaned, sounding like a whiny fledgling. “I want to stay down here, too! Can’t let those flies get on me!”
Sandbar chuckled. “Has it been some time since I’ve heard changelings called 'flies'….”
“Anyway," Gallus spoke up, "that means you have to trust me, and that I’m speaking the honest truth.”
Sandbar stared, slowed his breathing. “It is dangerous. You did sound a bit less like...you this time, but….”
“You gotta trust me!”
Sandbar looked straight at him. “OK. But, if you lift me from the ground while I’m asleep, I’ll wake up and give you a beating you’ll never forget.”
Gallus smiled. “That’s more like it!”
The griffon jumped into the hole, sliding Sandbar closer to the round soil wall.
“OK, I can see why this is a problem,” Gallus said, his inhibited wings and tail grappling with the tight walls. “I’ll have a hard time resting up.”
“And a harder time delivering me to your changeling friends,” Sandbar replied.
A pause. Gallus gave him a strange look.
“If you’re a changeling,” Sandbar said, his mood somewhat lighter now.
Gallus wet his beak and looked at the jackfruit on the floor. “Is it snacktime?”
“That’s my dinner,” Sandbar said. “Well, it used to be.”
Gallus tore it open, revealing its juicy and seedy yellow flesh.
“Save some for me,” Sandbar said before he yawned.
The griffon ate, overjoyed at the slightly sweet taste of jackfruit.



Morning came once again, and this day saw Sandbar and Gallus galloping about in the humid jungle, jumping over twigs and branches, staying in cover and concealing themselves behind big bushes. It was hot, it was humid; they were sweating. They looked down, making sure they did not hurt any potentially venomous insects or other dangerous animals along the way.
“How far is your place exactly?” Gallus asked between quick breaths, speeding by another row of thick trees.
“About two days at worst,” Sandbar said, breathing fast and quick.
“Two days?!” Gallus looked incredulous.
They turned left, avoiding a smack with a tree.
“I’m not going to lie to you!” Sandbar shouted back. “It has to be this far off!”
“Can we stop at some other place?” Gallus asked.
Sandbar remained quiet, thoughtful as he galloped over more branches. Then: “No!”
“No?!”
“We’d be wasting precious time! It doesn’t look like they’re stopping!”
“Can we go any faster?! I could fly and pick you up!”
“And risk being detected by changeling scouts over the trees?”
Gallus became quiet for a second. “Changed my mind! I’ll stick to the ground!”



Hours went by and it was night again. Under the moonlit sky, Sandbar and Gallus sat by a rushing river decorated with pebbles and rocks. They saw the little lights reflected on the river, transient and fading.
Sandbar took out a plastic bag from his mane, scooped up some water, and hoofed it to Gallus. “You first.”
Gallus smiled. “Just what I needed!” He guzzled the water, ran the bag dry.
Sandbar yanked it back, got more water from the river, and drank his own fill. He folded it and put it back inside his mane.
“Now what?” Gallus asked, looking at the moon above. “Are we going to sleep here?”
“No.” Sandbar stood up. “They could easily see us from above.”
Gallus frowned. “OK, so now what?”
Sandbar joined him in admiring the moon. “You said you got through the Hayseed Swamps. I thought you’d know more about this stuff if you survived all of that.”
“I wasn’t the best nestling,” Gallus said. “I barely got out of trouble. Maybe it’s because the changelings weren’t swarming over there when I had to travel, but I’m here. I’ll tell you, my first impulse right now is to fly until we get there—if we’re fast enough, we could make it before the sun rises, right?”
“What happened to conserving your energy?"
“Which is why it’s great to have you here,” Gallus said in a teasing tone, gesturing to him.
“Ugh. Do I have to do everything?”
“What about you teach me so you won’t have to do everything?”
“It takes time and we don’t have time—“
“Then why are you complaining about doing everything?”
Sandbar lifted a hoof, seething mad. “Quiet!”
Gallus was quiet, keeping his beak closed.
Sandbar looked back up to the moon.
“What is it?”
“Just checking,” Sandbar said. Then, with a flick of his head, beckoning Gallus to follow him, the both of them traversed the shallow river, Sandbar by jumping and Gallus by flying. The two of them reached the other side and went deeper in the forest.