The pink shield dissipated after a short while, but left her still tumbling through the air. After a few minutes of struggling she had managed to turn herself to see where she was going. She could barely see, the air in her face made her eyes water terribly. Blurs to either side must have been her surviving hive-mates, by the terrified emotions they were pumping out. She was sure she was doing the same.
She didn’t dare put her wings into the airstream, they would be ripped off. Instead she used the tips of them as rudders. Others were doing the same as the technique unconsciously spread through the hive-net. Being unable to extend her wings had reduced her flight to a simple ballistic trajectory.
A forest had been getting terrifyingly closer and closer as she sank lower and lower to the ground. Hitting it at this speed would shatter her chitin and kill her. All around her she felt the sudden blasts of pain and then the winking out of her sisters.
Seeing approaching disaster, she thrust one wing forcefully into the wind blowing past her. She clipped the top of one especially tall tree instead of careening directly into it. That had bounced her a bit higher and decreased her speed at the cost of a broken leg and severely damaged wing.
She could see a village in the distance rapidly getting closer. She tried to steer, to go higher, so she could lose more speed and perhaps begin to fly to no avail. She hit another tree, cracked part of her thorax and broke another leg. She went into a spin, and barely managed to close her wings tightly to her body.
She hit the ground and bounced, tumbling — several times. She cracked even more of her chitin and one of her other legs. She finally rolled to a stop against a tree in a large pasture, the distant village now uncomfortably close. She could feel several of her hive-mates abruptly stop emoting and she briefly grieved them. Then her pain hit.
She didn’t have any reserves to speak of, but she used a little of what she did have to at least reduce the pain. Then she tried to figure out where she was and if she was safe. She heard pony voices not far away. She couldn’t tell what they said, but they were curious about what all those strange things in the sky were.
Immediately, her infiltrator instructor’s voice seemed to fill her head. “You must never be seen as a changeling!”
It took almost all of her reserves, but she changed. She felt the gentle flicker of heat as her body changed to that of a rock. Then she passed out.
Later, she woke. She didn’t know how much later. She wasn’t even sure it was the same day.
She realized that any attempt to impersonate a pony would fail spectacularly — she had no way to explain her broken body and legs — never mind that she didn’t have the reserves to pull it off. And her condition pretty much prevented her from trying to run or crawl as her changeling self to somewhere safer. Her only choice was to remain hidden in plain sight.
She resigned herself to the likelihood that she would end up making a desperate attempt to flee to the forest. Her not-yet-healed broken legs would condemn her to being caught. If not by the Guards, then by the wildlife in the forest. But she didn’t intend to just starve to death here at the edge of a park.
It would be suicide to flee during the day, though. Especially in her exhausted condition. She would have to wait until dark.
Elly hid herself where she had landed. In the Ponyville Playpark. As a rock.
And that was a fortuitous decision, that initial panicked reaction. At first, on that day, the ponies had not yet heard of the events in Canterlot, and thus were calm and relaxed. Ponies came to the playpark to have fun. The parents enjoyed watching their foals have fun. The foals ran around and climbed on the rocks strategically placed throughout, along with the slides, swings, and other equipment. Sometimes a pony would lie against or on her, in her rock form, and she could feel the love he or she had for their foal.
The first time that happened, it shocked her. But she was in too much pain to really think about it. Instead Elly just accepted the love flowing out from the mother as her foal cuddled against her in the summer sun
Later that day, the train from Canterlot must have arrived. Or maybe a pegasus flew in, she didn’t know for sure. And in her current condition, she didn’t care.
During one of her more lucid moments, she heard the ponies gossiping in near panic about Canterlot, and that the Guards had a new spell that they were to use on everypony they met. And then she saw the Guards, only two, move through the park, reassuring the frightened ponies. They had done the spell so many times they almost reflexively cast it on every pony they saw.
To Elly’s horror, the spell was designed to strip a ling of its camouflage. Well, at least, that’s what she overheard. She was not about to volunteer to see if it worked as advertised. Fortunately, the ponies knew next to nothing about lings, and didn’t know to check things other than ponies.
She knew any lings they might have captured would never divulge any of the hive’s secrets, or secrets in general about the lings. They would rather die. Just as she would.
Fortunately, nopony ever zapped a rock with that Guard spell. Other ponies? Yes. Rocks in a playpark? Nope.
Then, that night, she discovered that the adolescents liked to use the cover of her rock to exchange kisses. More love!
It wasn’t a lot, hiding as a rock and waiting for ponies to wander by. But the flow of love, sporadic though it might be, was sufficient for her needs. Gradually, slowly, she healed.
And she was so lonely. Being unable to feel even the tiniest flicker of emotion or thoughts from her sisters or Queen Mother after that first day was debilitating. The deaths echoing towards her from the forest told her how the rest of her sisters faired in that first week. If she hadn’t been in so much pain those first few days, she probably would have had a panic-attack and undone her transformation by accident. And then been caught.
By the time she began to stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time, she had grown somewhat used to the loneliness. Being a rock made it a bit easier to simply exist, without too much contemplation of her situation. Rocks simply endured, and so did she.
She wasn’t a rock the whole time. When her reserves were sufficiently built-up, which took months, she transformed late at night. Then she snuck over to the pub and listened under the window to the gossip. Later, daringly, she adopted the shape of a pony she had seen in Canterlot, and actually went inside. She snatched an abandoned mug before the waitress got it, and hid in a corner seat, pretending to nurse her drink along.
She didn’t dare to take any of the love that drifted around her, afraid it would somehow give away her position. However, the low murmur of conversation reminded her of the hive, in a dull, limpid manner. It was a poor substitute, but it did a tiny bit to alleviate the loneliness she felt. She pretended what she was hearing were her hive-mates.
She rarely visited the pub after the first few times. It was too worrying, depressing, and dangerous.
The winter was awful. Foals didn’t play long, and ponies didn’t linger after dark. When her reserve had once more began to reach the desperately low level, she forced herself to act. Staying in the park as a rock in winter was slow starvation — and unacceptable.
Elly built-up a pile of dirt and snow to simulate her rock shape, then hid in the attic of a boisterous family’s home. There was love flowing there — enough to survive without revealing herself. If she had been an actual Infiltrator, she would have swapped places with the wife or husband for a night or two, filled up on love, then returned to the hive to off-load what she had harvested.
But she was a lone ling with no requirements to save what she harvested and bring it to the hive on a schedule. She could afford to harvest at a distance and simply maintain her stores. She needn’t top-off her reserves and then give them to the hive. Which meant she didn’t have to take any risks to gain love.
So, she hid in the attic or under the floor in relative safety as her reserves slowly refilled.
At least, that was, until the ponies decided on the day for their Winter Wrap-up. Then it was back to the play-park, and going back to short rations until it warmed up enough for the foals to once again flock to the park. It was an unpleasant return to worring if she would have to take action to restore her reserves.
First she heard, then she saw Tirek come into town that spring. She had been terrified. How she managed to remain hidden mystified her. She barely had time to scramble into the tree before her magic simply vanished, leaving her dangling between branches in her native form where the slightest breeze might have dislodged her. Or a panicked pony might see her.
The ponies were too occupied with their own issues to notice a missing rock, fortunately for her. Then, her magic mysteriously returned. She quickly transformed and hid again, in plain sight. And hoped no one had noticed anything.
Not much later — time moves faster when you’re a rock — and still in the park, news of the ponies building an enormous wall through the Everfree came to her attention.
Several late-night visits to the pub, now always crowded with guard ponies, was nerve wracking. She copied the friends of the few guards who were too drunk to notice that their friends had either left or passed out, and queried them.
And that led her to here, waiting to go to another world where she wouldn’t be hunted.
If it hadn’t been that she knew the hive was deserted, she might have tried to return. Then she would have been hailed as a hero. And Queen Mother would have rewarded her for surviving and bringing back this valuable news.
That she hadn’t even felt the tiniest glimmer of emotion from her Queen Mother over the link merely reinforced that she was alone. That she hadn’t felt anything of even another ling on their mental network in this entire time pounded that fact home.
If there had been any lings left, the Queen Mother would have made sure that every village was visited on a regular schedule to harvest for the hive, and to find lost lings.
She hadn’t detected any ling activity in Ponyville in over a year. She briefly considered that maybe Queen Mother was avoiding this area because of the Everfree, but that didn’t make sense.
Finally, the late hour approached and she roused from her thoughts. It was time to act. The portal awaited her.
She transformed into a large dog and placed her stolen book back into a small bag — swiped it from the Guards’ Barracks — with the interior expansion spell to join her gems and bits. Then she used the shrinking spell to fit it in her mouth — why had no ling ever thought of those two spells?
Hopefully, when she was changed by the portal, she would at least have a mouth and wouldn’t lose what little she had. That would be inconvenient, at the least. Or, worse, end up with it a part of her new body and die from the shock.
It went about as she expected.
She knew the drill for using the portal, having heard the ponies remind their friends. She thought about that strange name, Little Whinging, as she pushed into the tree. There was a flash of wood, then a flash of light. She quickly forced herself into the form of a dog and rushed into one of the dressing rooms. She hid behind some of the hanging robes.
She heard a voice that said, “Hay! Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“That flash of green light by the portal and something moving.”
“No . . . and nopony is scheduled this late at night. Not without a guard.”
“No, not a pony. Too small.”
She heard a steps at the far end of the centre hallway. She moved down the room she was in towards the other door, keeping to the cover provided by the robes hanging on the hooks. It, like the corridor, was nicely lit — unfortunately.
The door to the changing room opened.
“The corridor’s empty. See anything in the stallion’s room?”
“No,” came the voice nearly over her head. “Nothing.”
“Huh, nopony in the mares’ room, either.”
“Something’s not right. I know I saw something come from the portal. And a green light.”
“Well, there’s nopony here.”
“Yeah. You’re right. There’s no PONY here! Maybe it’s a changeling!”
There was an extremely loud whistle.
The pony beside her sighed. “Look, I think you’re seeing things,” he said as he stepped further into the room.
“And if you’re wrong?”
There was another heartfelt sigh.
She felt the robe over her head start to move.
The door was still open. She burst from her cover and darted out the door.
“CELESTIA! Something just ran out of here!”
She was in a large room. Two guards, in human form, were at a table seated across from each other. One of them had cards in his hand. He was turned towards her as she charged across the room at full speed towards the exit.
“It’s a dog!”
The one seated closest to her turned and leapt at her. His chair scraped and slid across the floor.
She concentrated as hard as she could on the door handle — a green glow enveloped it. The guard crashed to the ground behind her. The handle turned. Before she could pull, the door opened towards her. One of the humans was coming in. “Who sounded the alarm,” the new human said.
Elly didn’t stop. She rammed into the side of the human’s legs and kept running.
“Ahhh!” cried her victim as she fell to the floor.
“What’s a dog doing here?”
“A dog went through the portal!”
“No! A Changeling! It used magic!”
The room behind her fell into bedlam as the guards tried to follow her.
She immediately left the wooden walkway and charged into the underbrush. It didn’t matter which way she went, as long as she put enough space between her and the guards to lose them. She leapt over a large, downed tree-trunk, a startled, “Celestia!” in her wake.
“I can’t see where it went! It’s too dark!” she heard from far behind her,
A moment later, the unicorns were casting light spells.
Incredibly, her pursuit fell off quickly! She had expected there to be pegasi on this side, not to mention earth-ponies. There certainly were on the other side.
She didn’t stop running until she reached the stone wall, which she had heard surrounded the entire estate. Adding wings to her dog was easy, and she flew over the wall. She had lucked out. From the ponies’ descriptions she had expected either a town or farm — and here there was only farmland. She kept running for a few minutes, then changed to a squirrel and climbed the nearest tree. She transformed back into a Changeling, spit the bag out of her mouth and stuck it to her chitin. Then she started flying, keeping low so she wouldn’t be spotted against the night sky. When she started to see lights from the next town through the trees, she turned left. Half-an-hour later, she was burrowing her way underground as a large mouse, dragging her bag after her once she had it deep enough. She was far, far away from the portal — she hoped.
She had made it!
Tomorrow, she would start exploring this new world.
While she waited for the next night, she slept, tired from her frantic escape. She was really out of shape due to hiding for so long without any exercise to mention. She would have to remedy that.
۸-_-۸
The less said about Sunday, the better, Harry felt. The entire Gryffindor First Year cohort had difficulty meeting each other’s eyes, especially the boys, while they got dressed. Breakfast was barely bearable as the entire rest of the school laughed at what had happened, with many falsetto voices calling out “Oh, Harry! I loooovvvveeee you, come back!” and then cracking up into laughter. The only thing that made it bearable was that ninety percent of the teasing was directed at the Slytherin and Gryffindor First Year boys and not just him. Myrtle was especially merciless against the Slytherin Firsties, when she wasn’t flirting with one of the Prefects.
Immediately after breakfast, the fillies, Hermione, and Ginny commandeered an empty classroom and dragged Harry inside. As soon as they got inside, and locked the door — which made him a bit nervous at first — they transformed into ponies. Harry copied them.
“We have to talk,” Hermione said in her no-nonsense tone, Ginny standing beside her and blushing. “What happened yesterday was unforgiveable, even if it was a love potion that caused it all.”
Sweetie Belle interrupted, “I’m so sorry, Harry,” she had said, sobbing, “please don’t hate me!”
“I don’t hate you!” Harry had quickly replied. He looked around at the others, “I don’t hate any of you. I know it’s not your fault, it’s just, well, embarrassing.” He looked down at the floor, “And a bit scary, too. You should have seen the way you were looking at me.”
Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Ginny, and Hermione, stood at a respectful distance — they didn’t want to crowd him — and blushed madly. Sweetie Belle stood to one side of them, still crying.
“Still, Harry,” Hermione said, “The way we acted was . . . well, not how we wanted to act.” She stopped and took a calming breath. “I like you . . . we all like you. You’re a really good friend, Harry, and you’ve taught us such neat spells. We don’t want that to change.” She rubbed her front hooves together, then said. “And we want to apologize for chasing you just like all the others did.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry we put you on the spot like that. I’m sorry we chased you like cats chasing a mouse . . . not that you’re a mouse,” she hastily added. “Just that, well, we shouldn’t have done that and I’m sorry, we’re all sorry.”
Ginny mumbled her agreement and an apology.
Apple Bloom said, with a hesitant smile as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded, “Hay, we’re the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and you’re our herd-mate. You know we’ll always protect you and never would we make you do anything you didn’t want to do. We’re your friends above all else!” He could feel their sincerity. “And we’re really sorry we chased you like that.”
They all stood there awkwardly, looking at the floor between swift glances at Harry. He stared back at them, unsure of what he should say.
Finally, Scootaloo said, shaking her head, “Wow, Harry, I never realized just how fast and nimble you are! How come you never ran that fast in the Everfree? You would easily have out-paced us and we wouldn’t have worried so much.”
“Well, I couldn’t just leave you all behind, now could I?” he answered, caught off guard.
They all apologized again, and Hermione and Ginny insisted that they considered him just a good friend, but he had the feeling that maybe they weren’t being as truthful about the situation as they pretended.
The group hug afterwards was awkward, at first, but then became more comfortable and they settled into a pony-pile as they discussed what had happened. Gradually, by the time lunch came around, Harry was laughing at their renditions of the various boys, and some of the girls, caught up in the potion’s spell.
He did refuse to tell them where he had hidden, on the grounds he might need a hiding place in the future if he got them mad at him. He did tell them about his teleporting successfully. And then made them Pinkie Promise not to tell anyone who didn’t already know. It made for an ace secret. And, he thought, would come in handy.
Lunch was awkward with most of the school still ragging on the topic of Sweetie Belle’s Love Potion Number Nine — the Gryffindors weren’t sure where that name came from — and its effects on various students. But the girls closed ranks around Harry, which brought on its own teasing comments about Harry’s Harem from the rest of the Gryffindors. There were a few comments on if he was entertaining adding a few Slytherins to the pack, which were not approved of by the girls.
However, Harry wasn’t sure the ones teasing about the Slytherins weren’t actually being serious under the guise of humour.
Myrtle, though did come over to them. “Hey,” she said, leaning one hand on the table and giving the whole cohort a long look. “Are you all okay?” She frowned. “I know you all got accidentally dosed with a love potion.”
Sweetie Belle blushed and ducked her head down, refusing to meet her eyes.
“I’ve seen a lot of things happen while I was a ghost, you know,” Myrtle continued. “If any of you want to talk about it, I’d be happy to listen.” Her gaze lingered on one student. “Harry, if you want someone uninvolved to talk to, all you have to do is ask. I can give you a girl’s perspective that your friends might be too bashful or afraid to share.”
Harry looked up at her, still blushing about the topic, and thought for a moment. “Not right now,” he said slowly. “Maybe later?” He looked at his friends.
Myrtle seemed much calmer today than she had been in the previous few days. She almost seemed to glow. Her pimples were gone, he noticed, so she must have finally taken that acne cure that Madam Pomfrey had mentioned. The lack of pimples really did improve both her looks and her outlook. However, she must have tripped over something and fallen last night or this morning as she was walking a bit stiffly.
“Oh.” He frowned, looking at her. “Are you okay? You didn’t fall down, did you? You’ve been walking at bit stiffly.”
She simply laughed.
“Oh, nothing of the sort. I’m sure your girlfriends will be happy to explain it,” she said, smirking at the girls nearby. All of whom, when he looked, were blushing. He decided that was one question he could postpone asking — preferably forever. Questions that induced blushing were never good questions to ask, in his opinion.
Most of the witches at lunch seemed to notice Myrtle’s change in attitude — she was no longer shooting fiery looks at every wizard in sight — but were split on whether this was a good thing or not. The ones with boyfriends kept casting worried glances at their chosen ones, and asking if they had really gone to bed the night before as they claimed.
Some of the looks the affected First Year girls were giving Harry, though, still made him uncomfortable.
Myrtle smiled down at him, then reached over and ruffled his hair. Not that you could tell she had done anything, considering how difficult his hair was to manage, anyway.
“Just say the word,” she said, then smiled at the group. “You all did me a wonderful favour, it’s only right I pay you back — so, any questions? Come to me. Okay?”
They nodded and mumbled agreements as she turned and sauntered away.
Oliver sat beside the First Years at lunch — he had made a point of sitting with them, as did the twins and the three chasers. After Myrtle left, he introduced the new Chaser, Katie Bell, a brown-haired, brown-eyed Second Year of average appearance. Then he said, “Quidditch try-outs are scheduled for this afternoon and I would greatly appreciate it if you seven would do so.” He stared significantly at the fillies, Hermione, and Ginny. “You all played wonderfully at the Weasleys and I think you all would be a wonderful asset to the team.” After a bit more grovelling and pleading from the Quidditch Captain, the Gryffindor First Years found themselves being escorted by the Quidditch team to the pitch outside. Hermione, though, absolutely refused to participate. The other Gryffindors came along just to watch and cheer their friends.
۸-_-۸