“Do we know where they’re coming from?”
“I don’t know. How am I supposed to know anyway?”
Deep in the forest and sitting inside a nearby bush, Thorax watched the two changelings bicker out, their pony slaves in tow as those helpless servants could not help but watch their masters argue in the night.
“You were the one who’s supposed to know!” Ocellus shouted, pointing at Cornicle. “You were supposed to know where the hippogriffs would be hiding, you were supposed to know where all the refugees would be going through, you were supposed to know where Thorax is!”
“What about we leave him alone?!” Cornicle complained, flying above the ground to make a point. “It’s clear he doesn’t like being in the hive. He hates our great queen, he doesn’t wanna be with us, and if he wants to come back to be with his brother, he has no brother!”
Thorax perked his ears, making sure he did not move a muscle. A smile flashed on his face. “Is Pharynx not in the hive anymore? Did he leave? Did he change his mind?”
Ocellus kicked up some dirt. “You’re forgetting the fact that he has a hundred other brothers and sisters. It’s a shame they got Pharynx, but we’ll replace him with someone better.”
Thorax gasped, then bit both of his hooves. Tears welled up in his eyes. “H-He’s dead?”
“Don’t downplay yourself, Ocellus!” Cornicle said, reversing his angry frown. “Pharynx was good because he had lots of training and passion. You have a prodigy’s mind.”
Ocellus smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t call myself a prodigy...” then snapped back to something more neutral, “but let’s save that for later. We need to rat out the scaredy-cats in this forest.”
“Aren’t they scaredy-hippogriffs?” Cornicle asked. “Scaredy-seaponies? Scaredy-ponies?”
Ocellus turned to her pony slave/food, a mare with a long and flowing mane. “Hey, scaredy-pony.”
The nickname was appropriate since she shuddered at that. “Wh-What is it? Am I being punished?”
“What’s the name of your boyfriend again?”
“Uh, Star Tr-Tracker—“
And Ocellus took the love out of her, draining the pony with that pink stream emanating from her body. The mare faltered to her knees, struggling to even crouch.
Cornicle looked at his slave, a stallion with a bowtie around his neck. “And what about you? Where did you get that?”—pointing at the fancy cloth.
“I got it from the...from the—“
And Cornicle took the love out of him as well.
Thorax looked away, turned from the sight of it. “N-No...n-n-no!….”
Ocellus stopped her feeding and yanked the pony back on her four hooves. “We got places to be!” Turning to Cornicle: “I’ll accompany you instead. We’ll work together and find whoever’s hiding. Got it?”
Cornicle nodded while picking up his own slave, pulling him up. “Got it.”
“Good thing the both of them are pegasi,” Ocellus murmured before they took off to the sky, slaves following them in flight.
Thorax shivered and sat down inside the bush, the thorns and the sharp branches pricking his chitin. “Ow!”
“Let’s say we’re in big trouble because we are in big trouble.”
It was morning and Thorax was back in his bush, eavesdropping on a pair of hippogriffs on the path. One of them sported a bronze helmet, the other had a box of pearl necklaces and sported short yellow hair.
“Since we’re in big trouble,” the box-holding hippogriff continued, “we have to do something drastic to save everyone.”
“We are not doing anything drastic,” General Seaspray replied with his trademark deep accent. He broke a branch off a tree. “Everything is fine.”
“Everything is not fine,” the other hippogriff said, seeing the birds fly out of the tree. “How much of this are we going to take? The majority mistrust you, some are saying you are a changeling!” He took out his spear, did not prod him with it but kept it close. “Even I don’t trust you much.”
Seaspray looked shocked, held him back with his branch. “What are you doing, Wind Swell?”
“It’s self-defense,” was his nonchalant reply, eyeing the hopefully harmless branch. “Nothing more than that. I wouldn’t really kill the real General Seaspray.”
“But I am the real General Seaspray!”
“I don’t want to doubt you or anything,” Wind Swell said, holding up the box, “but I have these necklaces with the fragments. A changeling would be so happy to see me alone so they could take it from my claws and bring down Castnet from within the premises.”
“I won’t take it from you!” Seaspray said, sounding tense. “I promise!”
“You really promise?”
“Yes!”
Wind Swell nodded. He paced around on the path, making some circles. Then: “OK. Why did you bring me out here?”
“Because I’m also afraid,” was Seaspray’s reply. “They are out there. I know they’re out there." He stretched a claw towards some direction. "A changeling—no, maybe ten of them!—they might be there!" It was now the general who paced around, Wind Swell trying to maintain eye contact with him. "What I did was a mistake...I didn’t want to cause his family harm...but, they’re coming. They’re using that mistake to hold us in," jolted his head to the side, "to force us to stay there!”
“How do you know I’m not a changeling?” Wind Swell interrupted, walking in front of him and stopping him in his tracks. “How do you know a changeling’s not listening to us as we speak?”
“I don’t know!” Seaspray yelled, now flying around in a circle, holding out his fists. “This is our best shot! If there are any changelings here, it’s my fault, but better here than back in Castnet where they could overhear us and start rumors...and execute me!”
Wind Swell rubbed his eyes, then his beak, thinking. Then: “Hah! I have an idea!”
Seaspray beamed, landed on the ground. “What’s the plan?”
Wind Swell brought him closer by pulling his neck. “It’s going to sound really bad, but trust me. This is going to lure out any changeling inside.”
“I’m listening!”
Wind Swell opened his mouth and said: “Act dumb.”
Seaspray's eyes went wide. “Act dumb? Are you crazy?!”
“It’s genius,” Wind Swell said in a low but sure voice. “If you act dumb, a changeling will try to induce everyone to kill you. So, if we make it too easy for him, he will be too encouraged and he might get overconfident about his plan. He’s going to trip, make a bad step, and the both of us will be there when he slips up. Once we get him, we can show the changeling to the entire town and everyone will be safe.”
Seaspray rubbed his chin. “But, what about my image?”
“Who cares about your image?” Wind Swell said in a partial insult. “They’ll talk about you later when you save the town. You can take some pain for, say, two days.”
Seaspray was silent, thoughtful about the plan. “I like it, but there is one problem.”
“What is that?” Wind Swell asked, putting the box on his back and slightly raising his spear.
Seaspray looked slightly over Swell's eyes. “It will backfire if there are no changelings to begin with. I would be acting dumb for no good reason and I would be drowned as a result.”
“The changelings are getting awfully close,” Wind Swell reminded. “It’s unlikely we don’t have any infiltrators.”
“Hmm….” Seaspray looked up to the sky again, wondering and pondering on Swell’s plan.
Thorax felt his hooves shaking, beads of sweat on his face. He whispered, “What’s he gonna do?”
A minute passed in silence as the general still thought about it, feeling the breeze past by and rustling the bushes and the trees. He was cooled and comforted by that, getting him closer to an answer yet still not quite there.
Thorax rubbed his hooves slowly, impatient. “Could you do something?”
“I have it!” Seaspray yelled, pointing to the sky.
Wind Swell cocked his head. “So, what’s it gonna be? Yes or no on the plan?”
Seaspray grinned. “We have to go with—“
Screech!
They looked to the sky.
Over there, a lone hippogriff flying past the clouds.
Seaspray and Wind Swell looked at each other, nervous and anxious.
“That can’t be possible!” Seaspray shouted, trembling. “How could they get there so quickly?!”
Wind Swell opened his wings, took off, and shouted, “Go!”
They flew, disappeared behind the trees.
Thorax shivered. With a sigh: “That’s my cue.”
He turned away from the bush, hurried to the stamped out campfire beside which the grub lay awake and was feeding on a can of mushy baby food. Thorax picked him up along with the can which he closed. He placed the can inside a saddle bag sitting by a log, took the grub, and put both on his back.
“They’re coming,” he said. “This is the final stretch. After this….”
And left it incomplete as he lugged the logs around to random places, threw the firewood around and scattered them, and squirted perfume and cologne above where the fireplace had been, extinguishing the stench of smoke.
Thorax looked at the grub.
The grub looked back at him, confused and wondering.
“We’re going to be fine,” Thorax said, making sure he was smiling as wide as he can for the baby. “We’re just going on a trip, a stroll. Won’t be coming back here, though.”
He flew with the grub on his back, flying past the trees and avoiding the path, remaining under the shadows.
Seaspray and Wind Swell dodged trees, checking that they did not smash themselves into hard bark. They could hear themselves zipping by, barely evading damaging branches and boulders.
Screech! from above.
“How could they get here?!”
“Would you stop repeating that?!” Wind Swell shouted.
And Seaspray was quiet, eyes focused ahead, going up to dodge a rock, then left to go back to the path and into the open, out of the forest.
Before them, Castnet riddled with invading changelings. The hippogriffs and their other-creature friends fought back with spears, lancets, arrows, and bare hooves and claws. The changelings returned with magical blasts from their horn and stealing love from their foes, draining them dry of energy as pink streams popped in and out.
Seaspray gasped. “No!”
They saw families flying out of their houses as changelings smashed windows and broke open doors, tearing the place apart by destroying the furniture and fracturing precious valuables and heirlooms. Hippogriffs and ponies alike were screaming, changelings flying fast and chasing their heels.
The general threw himself into the fray, screeching and taking out the first changeling he encountered. More changelings surrounded him and he kicked and punched his way out of their grip and grasp. He then flew around, dodging beams and more flying changelings, making them miss and hit the ground instead.
Seaspray flew up, flew higher…then, shot down, gaining speed and grabbed a changeling and threw him down through the roof of a house and wrecked him through the floors down to ground level.
Now surrounded by musty walls and debris of bricks and concrete, he rubbed his aching head and flew out of the cottage, fighting through the pain ringing everywhere in his body.
He stumbled onto the village’s main road where much of the fighting was taking place, changelings battling the best guards Castnet had to offer with their sharpened spears, their dextrous movements, and their solid armor. Screams and cries, groans and moans—
“Here!”
Seaspray turned around, held out his claw and received something.
Over there, a marred and dying Wind Swell crawling on the grass, only to be dragged by several changelings.
“Use it!” he shouted before being beaten on the head.
Unconscious.
Seaspray opened his mouth, could not say a word nor a single syllable. Then, he held the item up to his eyes.
The box of pearl necklaces.
He looked at the final glimpses of his friend dragged then flown away to the sky. “Looks like you weren’t lying to me after all.”
Seaspray opened it, flew right above the center of the village, and jingled the necklaces in the air.
Screech!
All the changelings stopped and looked at him, floating over there with that triumphant grin.
“You want this?!” he shouted, waving the necklaces about. “Then you gotta get me!”
The changelings collectively looked at each other as if waiting for an answer from their colleagues. Then, together, most of them charged at the general.
Seaspray fought with all he could. When direct attacks did not work, he switched to flying around and hoping they would not be as fast as him. When that did not work, he stuck back to direct attacks with his kicks and punches.
The changelings, try as they might, could not get he necklaces out of his claws. When they caught one of them, a knock-out uppercut was their answer and they were considered unable to grab them.
Seaspray grunted, looking around him and seeing more and more changelings flying to him, trying to pry the necklaces out of his claws.
They were returning the punches, returning the kicks, returning the dodges. His hits missed. Pain was surging and stinging throughout, each hit only worsening him, weakening him.
His vision dimmed, his head throbbed with pain.
Seaspray shouted, “Sky Beak, I’m sorry!”
Released the necklaces and—
“Follow me!” shouted Thermocline, mother of three not-so-young hippogriff fledglings, as they and their father flew in the forest, whizzing by trees and logs and animals and bushes. They could hear the changelings’ hisses and buzzes die down although that did not slow them down.
“You did not lose track of them, did you?!” desperately screamed Wet Well, her husband.
“We’re going to get there!” yelled Thermocline. “We can make it out of this!”
As they rushed, flying and gliding—
“Ow!”
The four of them stopped, looking at the middle son with a wing snagged by a branch.
“We’re not gonna make it!” cried the eldest daughter, holding on to her head in terror. “Come on, Tidal Stoke!”
“Why don’t you move and help your brother out?!” the mother shouted as everyone, now including her, moved towards their stuck son gritting his teeth and wincing at the pain.
They approached him, Tidal Stoke hanging by his wing caught by a sharp and thin branch.
“Let me get you out!” the youngest one shouted with enthusiasm. He pulled on the wing.
“Ow, ow! You’re just making it worse! Stop pulling it, Shallow Puddle!”
“That’s not how you talk to your brother!” the mother yelped, glaring at him.
“I don’t think we should be scolding our kids for being impolite now!” the father said, looking back in dreadful and shaky fear, his brown ears flaying. “We’ve got bigger problems.”
He heard the buzzing approach, growing louder.
They all heard it.
“We have to get out of here!” yelled Meander Bend, the daughter, and flew away with open wings.
“You are not going away!” Thermocline shouted after her.
And the daughter froze in place, slowly turning back towards the mother.
“You’re not going to be abandoning your family anytime soon, you know!” Thermocline said in a harsh manner. “What if we leave you alone when you’re in trouble?!”
“But, Mom, it’s dangerous!”
“They weren’t complaining when you were beating them up!” she shot back. “Now help me lift Tidal out of this!”
And the four went to Tidal Stoke and tried to pull his wing, shifting it this way and that way depending on his “Ow!’s” and how long or how loud they were, the buzzes only growing.
Snap!
Stoke fell to the ground, feeling excruciating pain at the impact as he groaned. Then, everyone, even the injured hippogriff, looked in front of them.
A kind of yellow, kind of green pony with cyan hair. He scratched the back of his head, laughing worriedly. “Sorry for that, but I gotta get you out of here fast! We’ll get it out later!”
“Thank you!” Wet Well yelled, shaking his hoof with his claw. “Now, let’s get out of here together!”
And, as they flew and ran, dodging more trees and rocks and other stuff that could halt them—Tidal Stoke, branch still on his wing, asked the pony, “Who are you? I never saw you before!”
“Me?” that pony said, panting with each leap. “My name’s Sandbar!”