//------------------------------//
// An Error, Not a Trial 
// Story: Changing Ways 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

Her eyes shot open.
Fluttering, closed.
Breathing, breathing on the wooden table.
Figures shifting their heads under darkened lights.
“Do you think she’s alright?”
“She looks OK. Maybe she’s scared of heights.”
A claw felt her lower jaw.
“She’s fine,” said a familiar voice. “She needs some rest.”
“Where are we going to drop her off?”
“Somewhere. We’ll see. I wasn’t expecting saving anyone this run.” A pause. “Spittle, you’re in charge of keeping her well-fed and well-rested. Tell me when she wakes up so we can explain things to her.”
“Aye, aye, captain!” cawed a female crew member.
Shuffling of steps fading away.



Fresh Coat’s eyes shot open again.
Felt the warm mattress and the pillow on the back of her head. She turned her head to the right.
Nothing but gray clouds past the window.
“Agh! Where am I?!”
A door creaking open. “She’s awake!”
Fresh Coat turned around, saw the chubby aproned parrot holding the door open. She pointed at her, scared. “Wh-Who are you?!”
The parrot smiled kindly, her chubbiness notwithstanding. “I’m Lix Spittle, but you can call me Spittle. Just don’t call me Spit.”
She pointed at the parrot, kept pointing at her with an unsteady hoof. “Are you...are you a friend of that Celaeno parrot?”
“Friend?” she repeated, a little surprised. “She’s my friend and my captain! She’s a jolly fellow when you get to know her more. Oh,” looked out the door, “here she is!”
The steps increased in volume and finally stopped with Celaeno herself at the door, sword holstered on her back.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, ma’am,” Celaeno said, walking past the carpets to Coat on the bed. She took a seat and sat down beside her. Looked at Spittle. “You can go now. It’s almost dinner.”
Spittle glanced at the clock on the wall. “Right! How could’ve I forgotten?!”
And off she was, running out the bedroom and down the hallway, her footfalls decreasing.
Celaeno looked off at the open space for a few seconds. Then, she turned to the mare lying down on the bed. “Fresh Coat...do you know who we are?”
She shook her head, then slowly pointed at her. “I kn-know you.”
Celaeno looked upon her with that solemn face. “You’ll get to know the rest of the crew later on. Spittle’s our cook. Makes the best of whatever she’s got. She could turn a bunch of fruits and fish into a hearty meal.” She finished it with a swing of her claw across the space before her.
The mare shuddered, preferring to hide behind a pillow for a second.
Celaeno scooted the chair an inch forward, squeaking the floor with it. “I guess you know what we do. We’re swashbuckling treasure hunters.”
“Isn’t that a long way of saying ‘pirates’?” Fresh Coat mentioned.
The parrot cracked a smile. “Some of us don’t like the sound of the word. It makes us sound like we’re evil when, really, we just want treasure. The adventure, the thrill...I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Fresh Coat looked off, away from the parrot.
“We’re on our way to Basalt Beach,” she said. “There’s a forest nearby. Rumors are that the Sphere of Fortitude lay hidden there.”
The mare opened her mouth, wondering. “What does i-it do?”
Celaeno’s smile grew. “If you wield it, you are guaranteed to never lose a fight with your foes.”
Fresh Coat drifted her eyes off of her.
Celaeno then became curious. “What were you doing over there? The others said you stowed away on that ship.”
The pony balked, shifted herself closer to the window by the bed. “Th-That’s because...I was trying to run away.”
“Run away from who?”
She shivered. “From the changelings.”
Celaeno straightened up on her seat. “Makes a lot more sense now.”
They were silent for a while, Fresh Coat letting herself see the room she was in with its trinkets of treasures from jewel-laden bracelets and necklaces to gold and silver coins.
Then, Celaeno spoke: “If you want to go far away from them, what about you come with us? Basalt Beach is pretty much the farthest you can go on foot. There’s no settlement there, but I heard that the hippogriffs live nearby. You could move into their land, if they’re willing.”
Fresh Coat nodded. “They’re more than willing to allow ponies like me to get some shelter.”
Celaeno nodded back. “So...could you tell me what happened along the way here? It may be close to dinnertime, but I’m up for ten minutes of storytelling.”
Fresh Coat sighed, still lying down on her bed. She looked up, facing the ceiling above. “Well, I grew up in Canterlot. Big city, the capital. When I figured out my cutie mark was a paint can, I realized my talent and my destiny was to help others by painting things. I tried painting...um, paintings but that didn’t work out, so I took the easy way and offered to paint walls for new houses and stores. They liked what I was doing, I got money, and I thought I’d live the rest of my life without much trouble.”
“Then the changelings arrived,” Celaeno chimed in.
The mare nodded, her lips turning down.
In the sky, a faraway streak of lightning flashed.
“I was one of the ponies tasked to spruce up the castle where the wedding would take place. I attended it and then...Princess Cadance wasn’t really Princess Cadance—it was Chrysalis. I was scared when I saw many of the ponies attending with me weren’t really ponies, too. They almost caught me, but I managed to escape in time.
“At first, I tried hiding underground, but the changelings were searching the tunnels and caves out, so I had no choice but to leave my home. It wasn’t easy, trekking on my own with nopony you know because they’re either dead or taken away by those flies. Then, after staying a while in Appleloosa, I was assigned to go with the second batch of ponies who were going to make a new base at the edge of Bone Dry Desert. So, I went there—turned out one of those ponies was also a changeling and...the distrust, the fear we had of each other. We were ready to beat each other up if they acted too fishy.
“But we made it. We made it to last stretch of jungle and that’s where I stayed. I didn’t do much. I gathered for food, helped start the campfires, sometimes went on guard duty. I tried painting again, both on canvas and on walls, but our leader told me to stop painting on the walls because it would give ourselves away to changeling patrol.
“After almost a year of staying there, we had to go. Go far, far down south through the desert. We reached Klugetown and we barely made lodging up in some windmill or something because one of the talking cats had it for sale and they were OK with it if some of us had to do odd jobs for him. I volunteered to paint the locals’ walls because they looked nasty and he said it had good pay. It did have good pay, but I couldn’t bear being insulted and have paint thrown at me. It’s...it’s gruesome...and I couldn’t wait to get out, even if it meant abandoning my friends back there.”
Celaeno could see those eyes moistening.
“I didn’t want to bother my friends by being annoying to them, so I sneaked away in the night, stayed inside the ship you saw me in, and waited. I....”
She sneezed, her nose becoming runny.
“Sorry for lying to you”—Celaeno raised a brow—“but I wasn’t mistreated there. The captain was actually quite nice to me even though he had the others trapped there. Gave me a good enough breakfast, and then you came...I-I didn’t know what to do. He was going to leave me alone with no one to be with—did this Gearan guy live in a town or does he live alone? Would the natives throw paint at me there? I didn’t like it.
“So I thought of going to you. You had more heart, more...good in you. I could tell, and I was happy to be proven right just when you offered me a trip to Basalt Beach and take shelter with the hippogriffs.” A pause, looked at her with a thoughtful face. “I’m staying with you, captain. It’s going to be better this way for me….”
She trailed off.
Celaeno sighed, slumping down on the chair and putting her sword dowjn on the table.
Past the window, more lightning streaks flashed. This time, the both of them could hear the thunder.



The aftercastle of the airship consisted of short flights of stairs leading to the steering wheel along with a carved figure of a parrot’s head above the door which brought anyone to the living quarters inside. Over there, Gregory and Thermal were hauling boxes and crates stored there down to the deck where the yak would open them, revealing packs of gems and sacks of sweet-smelling herbs inside. Tempest kept guard, watching over them all with her impassive face as the windy current surged past them. Above was the yellow envelope shaped like a parrot’s face, yellow in paint.
Fresh Coat, on the other hoof, stood at the railing, looking down at the sea of clouds below her, that sea of nothing but gray clouds. Sometimes, a white spark would course through them, and she could pick up the bellowing of thunder.
“Don’t you worry,” she heard Celaeno say. Fresh Coat turned around and saw the captain herself, away from her steering wheel. “We’ll be there in no time. You won’t have to traverse the mountains, so you’ll make it in...say, six to ten hours. Depends on whether we meet any other ships to raid.”
Fresh Coat shuddered but smiled. “I’ll take it.”
Celaeno smiled back. “That’s what I’d like to see from you!”
A door swung open from the deck floor; a voice howled, “We’ve got a changeling!”
Gasps around, Celaeno and Fresh Coat running down to the deck and Thermal dropping a box and stumping Gregory’s claw, the yak galloping towards the parrot holding the changeling wrestling against the rope as she was carried in the pirate’s arms, and Tempest wrecking her with a torrent of magic, frying the intruder there.
“She’s got Spittle!” cried out the eyepatched parrot, seeing Celaeno coming down. “I don’t know where she’s storing her, but Boyle’s checked everywhere and we couldn’t find her!”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner, Mullet?” Celaeno shouted. “You could’ve rung the bell!”
“I didn’t want to cause any panic!” he blubbered back, holding his claws up. “We’ve got a loose cannon on deck and I don’t want her to shoot me!”
“Tempest is fine,” Celaeno said. “You’ll have to get used to her since she’s coming with us for the treasure.”
Then, all were silent. Even the changeling froze for a bit in his rope.
Buzzes. Many buzzes.
From below, a horde of changelings rose up from beneath the clouds, with one holding a sword.
He landed on deck, and swung his sword around, letting it gleam. He pointed it at the captain. “Verko’s not gonna like it when he hears I’m late, but better late than never! You give me my customers back, or else me and my pals are going to take you down and steal this ship!”
Celaeno smiled. “Make me.”
Red Noise hissed. “You asked for it! Changelings, charge!”
And his pals swarmed the airship, some landing on deck and engaging in battle with both pirates and prisoners, with two more parrot pirates coming up through the door to join in. Buzzes and slashes went across the air, as changeling after changeling fell lifeless to the floor, some sliding off into the clouds below. Thermal, with intense urging from Gregrory, unleashed his fire breath and burned several more changelings while the griffon himself took to carrying off unsuspecting enemies and then breaking their wings before dropping them into a long fall to the ground. The yak stomped around, throwing off the changelings and confusing them, leaving those invaders vulnerable to Tempest’s slow blasts of magic energy dripping from her broken horn.
Fresh Coat froze, stood there alone and untouched by the fighting around her.
Celaeno looked at her, locked in combat with Red Noise as they dueled with their swords. “Get in the cabin, lock your room, and close the window! Hide under the bed and don’t get out until you hear me! Understood?!”
And Fresh Coat was off, running back into the quarters through the door, quitting the creatures on deck to duke it out as more changelings flocked onto the airship.
Below, more lightning streaks flashed through the dark clouds with their thunder.