Marie was the only one of her friends not wearing one of the outfits chosen for them by the boring child phycologist and military people. Her dress and blouse and gold-buttoned sleeves looked quite convincingly like she’d worn the real thing. But they were as illusory as her lack of weird eyes, wings, or fangs.
It was not physically uncomfortable to remove her wings, not the same as it was to keep them trapped by her clothes. But as she walked down the blind cloth tube, she found herself still feeling trapped. I hope they do let me go to Equestria. I would really like to learn to use them.
The Armitage facility had provided them with many comforts over the last week or so. The finest foods had been brought in for their guests to try, some of which had been amazed at all the different ways humans had to prepare their meat.
Some, like Marie, would’ve rather had Nando’s than roast duck any day. But after the second day, Helen’s first care package arrived from her family, and none of them were bored anymore.
Even the aliens had enjoyed the musical rhythm game on a projector screen, doubly useful for watching movies. All unassuming children’s films, but still. Better than endless Smash rematches on the only Switch that had been waiting for them.
The tunnel was completely enclosed, with fully artificial lights overhead. It had no windows, just a blast of air following them forward like when they left the Airbnb house.
“Yona does not like all this dark,” she said from just in front of Marie, stomping one hoof on the plastic with enough force that it tore. It revealed green grass underneath, cut quite short. Where are we, anyway?
“It’s alright,” Agent Smith said from up ahead of them. He was one of the many support staff that would be coming along. His partner had been replaced with the child psychologist, Miss Norington, along with a doctor and a soldier who had been unofficially appointed as the ponies’ ambassador to the rest of the base. Mostly he brought them sweets and hay. “They brought in the biggest thing we could for this flight, given your, uh… size. She has windows, and you’ll be allowed to use them as soon as we’ve flown far enough from Armitage. And once we land aboard ship, you’ll be free to join your delegation.”
“Must be pretty big,” David said, from a few spaces behind her in line. He was walking beside a human-formed Ocellus, who was imitating her right down to the outfit so far. “We’re going to be landing on the Queen Elizabeth, right? I can’t think of anything else we have that could carry all of us… unless NATO sent a V-22.”
“She is big. One of ours, not some loner,” Smith agreed, tasting impressed for a second with David’s deduction. Though Marie couldn’t understand why. If it was signing day, of course the queen would be there.
The tunnel reached the side of an already-open loading ramp. The space had been completely stripped, even down to the seats, with the exception of a few in the front. There were blankets and ropes hanging seemingly at random, and a few undeployed nets, but that was all.
“Now.” Smith stopped at the front, tapping loudly on the metal with his knuckles. “Word of warning for, uh… you two.” His eyes settled on Ocellus, and then darted back to Marie. “I don’t know which god you bribed to break the laws of physics and change mass. The implications terrify me. But for the sake of a smooth trip, do not do that while in flight. Remain… small, if you would. Pilot tells me we’re nearing the service range for this payload. Given your unwillingness to be split up… well, just don’t change while you fly, alright?”
Ocellus nodded. “I spoke to Blackburn about that already. I don’t really understand how your airships fly without a lift-stone, but I can stay as one thing for a few hours.”
“Human airship,” Silverstream said. “I know lots of birds in the hippogriff navy that would love to see this. And there’s a ramp, too! You made a whole ramp out of metal!”
“The whole thing is metal,” Smith said, but despite his apparent annoyance Marie could see the truth in his mind. The more he relaxed around them, the more she could taste what he was feeling. He thought they were adorable. “But don’t take that to mean she’s invincible. Aircraft are made to be as light as possible, so she’s not going to stand up to a beating like the inside of a concrete bunker. I’m going to need the lot of you to be on your best behavior while we’re in-flight. We’ll basically have to sit down and wait until we land. I hope you all used the facilities…”
Loading took another twenty minutes or so. Marie got into one of the chairs beside her friends, and listened to a navy pilot in a fancy uniform as he went over the safety information for their flight and passed out headphones with little microphones on the end.
Then they took off, and any awe the ponies had for their strange “airship” became animal fear and frustration at just how loud the helicopter was. Even Marie felt it, though her headset was properly sized and not something makeshift put together from retention wire and pieces of real headsets.
“Is it always this loud when you fly?” Ocellus asked from the seat beside her. But where her friends were in various stages of near-panic, the changeling was more collected. Because she can feel all our emotions. She knows there’s no reason to be afraid if the humans controlling it aren’t.
Just how many ways would Marie be able to use her powers to cheat? So long as she had friends, she’d never have to let anyone see what she really looked like anymore, Ocellus had guaranteed that. There was no ‘cure’ waiting for her in Equestria. But that didn’t matter.
David thought he was being clever, holding Ocellus’s hand like that. Helen was on his other side, so she wouldn’t be able to see. But Marie didn’t need to be able to look at them to feel it. There was a strange contentment from both of them, mixed with a bubbly rush of the forbidden. They knew how stupid this was, yet they didn’t seem to care. “Oh good, these things are all on the same radio channel. The answer is no, Ocellus. Flying is loud, but most of the time we use jets. They’re pretty quiet on the inside compared to this. But this is a military helicopter. I guess they don’t care if the soldiers aren’t comfortable.”
Should I be mad that she still looks like me?
“Welcome to the armed services,” said another voice, one Marie hadn’t heard before. She might’ve wondered who it was, except that he introduced himself a few seconds later. “This is your captain speaking from the cockpit. We’re on track for arrival on the Elizabeth in about four hours. We’re expecting clear skies all the way out. Please leave the shrouds on the windows for the next hour or so. Once we’ve made a few course changes and we’re over the ocean, you’ll be free to take them off.”
“Because if we found out where Armitage is, you’d have to kill us, right?” Helen asked. Far from being uncomfortable on the plane, she radiated excitement at the flight.
“Something like that,” Smith said. “Let’s just keep it simple. Get our visitors back home, get you… well, not back to your parents exactly. But that’s not my place to talk about.”
They flew on. There was little drama during the rest of the trip over, except for when they were finally free to uncover the windows and creatures rushed around to get a view outside. The aliens were so gigantic that some of them walking around could shift the internal balance and make their course start to wobble.
It wasn’t really worth the view anyway. Marie got out of her seat, wandered over to the window, and saw only water as far as she could see. Wide skies and the occasional wisp of cloud. She probably could’ve made out a few ships somewhere if she really stared, but watching a black-and-white ocean just didn’t entertain her.
My first time flying was on the back of a griffon. That was way more exciting than this.
“Hey, Marie,” Sandbar said. Like every one of the aliens, he was looking bored, resting his weight against a cargo net and half-sitting on the metal floor. “You’ve been practicing your magic, haven’t you? Why don’t you show us?”
“You have?” Silverstream looked up, beaming at her. “Oh, I wanna see! Can you do animals yet? Or… maybe plants. Oh wait, do me! I wanna see if a human can do a hippogriff!”
“She won’t be doing any of that,” Agent Smith said over the radio, only slightly annoyed. “Remember, we can’t change mass.”
“And it’s probably a better idea to avoid too much experimentation with those mutations,” Miss Norington added, her voice far more sensitive. “You’re going to be cured soon anyway, Marie. Growing too dependent on them will only cause you pain later.”
“If you say so,” she thought, for only Ocellus to hear. “I haven’t practiced with changing me,” she muttered, blushing a little. Maybe she should have. A trip to Equestria probably would be easier if she could walk like the natives. But swimming around with a tail had been weird enough. Four legs would probably break her brain or something. “I’ve been practicing with clothes, mostly. I always wanted to cosplay, but my mum… we never had the money for it. But now it’s free.”
“What is a… cosplay?” Smolder asked, suddenly interested. “Not that a dragon cares about clothes or anything, obviously. I’m just trying to learn more about our new neighbors. That’s the only reason.”
Marie wasn’t pleased there were so many eyes on her now, when she would’ve been happy to show off to just one. But now that everyone was watching her… “Cosplay is… I guess it’s mostly older people. It’s half crafts, half tailoring, and half performance I guess? I dunno, I think it’s a rich people hobby. I just figured… the way changelings copy is in your mind, right? Holding a picture in your head so good it gets physical. No reason I couldn’t do that with costumes from my favorite shows. Like…”
She concentrated, and the overly formal black and white clothes she was wearing faded to an oversized blue dress, with many overlapping layers that looked like ice. “Frozen? I know I don’t have the right body for it, but… I still like Elsa’s dress. Or…” She spun around again, and this time settled on shorts and a vest, with straps down her arms. “How about Tomb Raider? She’s bloody awesome!”
Each time she changed, Marie could feel that little bit of magic draining away from her. Nothing quite so concrete that she could put numbers to, but it was certainly there. Even holding the clothes in place took a little of it.
With all these ponies to look at and appreciate her work, the costumes weren’t even monochrome anymore.
“It’s cool,” Smolder muttered. “Humans have lots of different costumes, huh? We might need to investigate that. For… trade purposes or whatever boring pony stuff. How hard are they to make normally?”
“It’s amazing!” Ocellus exclaimed. How she’d got right next to her to watch, Marie couldn’t tell. But she was walking a slow circle around her in the helicopter. Miss Norington had told them several times not to move while they flew if they didn’t have to, but after so many hours of flight no one was listening anymore. “I think you might’ve come up with a genuinely new way of using our magic, Marie. In Equestria, clothes aren’t important. But for you humans, they’re almost like… your whole identity or something. It seems like ‘cosplay’ is a way for you to go halfway to changelings already.”
“Yeah, well… don’t look at the Tinkerbelle I made back home. It’s… really bad. But this is great!”
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Agent Smith interrupted. “But pilot just told me we’re coming in for our final approach. Maybe you should go back to the outfit we gave you, Marie? And everyone else, sit down. We’re just about done here.”