//------------------------------// // 24: Thrown into a blender // Story: Halls of the Changeling King // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// “Hello, Five,” Six approaches the warrior inside the unusually silent castle in comparison to the city he saw outside while returning from the emerald mine. Dwarf guards at every corner have been giving him stern looks, but no one has tried to stop him. Come to think of it, Six hasn’t been spending much time in the castle, but weren’t there way fewer guards around before? Five, of course, has known about the drone ever since he entered the castle, but the fact that he would be looking for her never crossed her mind. It’s been few lazy days recently, and no one wanted anything from her past the usual morning combat practice that she’s reverted to her usual way of killing time - standing at the door of the top floor castle library and letting her mind wander. Considering that her mental powers are more or less nonexistent, she’s not surprised she hasn’t been able to sense boss or Eight for few hours, as the two have been disappearing together quite often recently. Two was supposed to be on a date with her dwarf coltfriend today as well, and no one else has contacted her about anything. So, with no orders to the contrary, Five’s been doing her default job. Until now. Five opens her eyes. “Hi, Six. Is there any trouble?” The drone shrugs. “I dunno. No one has said anything for a while, and I’ve been helping in the emerald mine until now. Three left somewhere and didn’t say where he was off to, just that Scream wanted something from him like she’s been doing, so I suppose it’s another mental massage thing or whatever it is. How does that work anyway?” “Asking the wrong physical-focused changeling here, Six.” “True, anyway, umm… you know there’s this big dwarf celebration outside, right?” “Yes, I do. One of the big reasons why I’m inside.” “Oh...” Six taps his hooves on the carpet before biting his lip and looking back up at Five, “I wanted to ask you if you’d go outside with me. I’ve got some gold, and some of the attractions look fun. I even asked, and a vendor said they had stuff that even we would consider delicious.” ”Boss, Eight, Two, anyone! Do you have anything for me to do?” Only silence answers Five’s mental plea. ”Seven, I need orders! ANYTHING that would keep me in here,” she tries talking directly to the infiltrator, and gets booted out of his link immediately. ”Busy. Reading. Too much noise everywhere else.” ”...and I can hear you...” mumbles Six with a sigh. His dejected look finally gives Five pause, and she pats the smaller changeling on the head. “Fiiine, let’s go. Too many dwarves everywhere, and someone might accidentally drop their platemail on you. I’m your guard, Six. Enjoy yourself. I’ve got your back.” “Sooo… you gonna do what I tell you to?” Six perks up immediately. “Don’t push it.” “Alright, you gonna do few things if I ask nicely?” “We’ll see.” *** The two stroll lazily through the now crowded castle square, Five, ‘disguised’ as Flower Pot, following Six who is turning his head from side to side, examining every temporary stall or stone store. “Win your lady something unique, and she’ll treasure you forever!” yells a dwarf over the talking crowd, which makes Six take a sharp turn to a several ponies long track with a stall in front and painted round targets at the end. There are various plushies, things made from precious metals, gadgets, and many more prizes. A throwing range? A dwarf whose turn it is now spins an axe by the loop on its end, then swings his foreleg. To his credit the axe hits the furthest target, even the bullseye, but from the looks of it the wooden circle must be reinforced somehow because the axe bounces off. “What’s the grand prize?” Six pokes the stall owner. The dwarf grins, and points to a glass tube with a single rose inside it, “A real crystallized rose, mister, straight from the surface and treated by a dark priest. Will last for centuries,” he glances Five’s way, “One bit per axe throw.” “Gimme three!” Six bounces up and down, presenting the coins. “Sure thing.” The currently throwing dwarf curses when his axe bounces off again. “Freaking rigged...” he mumbles and leaves. “Here you go!” the smiling owner gives Six the throwing axe. The drone spins it around, and it flops off on its own. “Oops! Sorry, it’s my first time.” The owner’s smile grows even wider. “That attempt was on the house. So, still three more.” As expected, on the third attempt Six can barely throw the axe in the right direction, much less hit the target and make the axe stick. If he knew this would be an opportunity, he would have asked Battlecry to give him some private lessons. “Damn it!” he frowns, “Can I have five more?” he jingles his pouch of coins. “Hey, let somepony else take a shot!” yells a dwarf from the crowd. Five rolls her eyes. “Just one more throw, can we?” “Umm, Five?” Six looks up at her. “Of course, gorgeous lady,” the stall owner takes Six’s coin, “Although I think the little guy wanted to win it for you.” “Yeah!” Six nods vigorously. Ignoring them both, Five starts spinning the axe, her eyes locked on the target. Six senses the usage of love and… ...Five’s axe bites into the most difficult target, a short distance away from its center, then it flops out. “Owwww, so close!” announces the owner, “You might want to give one of the easier prizes a shot-” “One final throw. For real this time,” says Five. Six immediately produces a coin which the attraction owner pockets with an even bigger grin. Five filters out the crowd, the owner, Six’s smiling face, and recalls only her training with Battlecry. The axe is obviously dull, the target reinforced, and the owner shady. However, Five lives to serve the hive, and right now there’s very little that would make one of its members happier than to get the preserved rose. For the good of the hive. The axe catches fire mid-flight and shatters the target into pieces. Everyone’s jaws drop. Six starts cheering, forelegs in the air and eyes glowing. Five makes few circles with her throwing shoulder and rubs it. “Ouch!” “Wh-how-wh-cheating! Magic!” the vendor complains, but immediately withers under Five’s flat glare. “I’ve got few royal witnesses that I can’t use magic no matter how hard I try. I won this fair and square. and my shoulder still hurts from throwing that prop you call an axe. Now, let’s give others a chance to play.” The crowd has thinned out a little with the grand prize obviously claimed, but there are still enough contenders for other stuff even after the owner sighs and presents the glass tube with the rose to Five who gives it to Six. “Here you go.” The two meld into the mass of dwarves everywhere around, and Six pokes Five’s side after a moment. To her surprise, he’s pouting. “That was really cool, Five, but, you know, I wanted you to have the flower.” “Technically, I won it so it’s mine. You’re just holding it for me.” “But I wanted to give it to you!” “Alright, it’s yours now. You can give it to me if you want.” Six lets out an annoyed huff. Then he presents the tube with his both forelegs to Five. “Umm, Five, I want you to have this. It’s the closest thing I’ve seen today to how pretty you are, and I think it would look good on you.” Five raises an eyebrow, takes the rose out of the container, and tucks it behind her ear, fastening it with few strands of mane. “When I turn back into a changeling, I’ll shove it into a leg hole or something if it makes you happy.” To her confusion, Six doesn’t feel any happier, but she follows him anyway. Eventually, the crowds grow smaller, and most importantly - quieter. “You hate this, don’t you?” asks Six out of nowhere. “Not as such, no,” Five shrugs. “It’s because it’s me, isn’t it?” Five looks at the smaller drone, sensing his disappointment. “No, not really,” she sighs, “Look, Six, I don’t know what you want from this. If you want a quick roll in the hay, we can find a quiet spot a bit further away. I don’t mind, or care, really-” “No!” Six objects, backing off, “Not like this at least. It hurts me to know what Two did to you, even more that it’s my fault. Well, only a little, but still. I wanted you to have fun, to be happy. I feel warm inside when I see you smile, and I don’t think I’ve seen that ever since I left for my mission which ended with you… like this.” “I smile plenty, Six. Now that I know the real relationship between the boss and Eight, I don’t really mind too much what Two did anyway. She hasn’t been ordering me to do anything recently. And no, it’s not your fault. I tried to justify my situation in such way when I was angry, but the truth is that I failed my mission, failed to resist Two’s mental attack, and ended up like this. I’m not mad at you, Six. Truth be told, considering how things worked out… I’m glad I failed to kill you. I’m just a warrior, Six. My situation doesn’t change too much, really. I obey whoever’s in charge.” “Don’t say that!” Six jabs her chest. She gives the little hoof a mildly amused look. “That I’m glad I didn’t kill you?” “You know what I mean, Five! I know you’re not a mindless punching machine you make yourself to be.” “Six, you see much more in me than is there. I really only wish to serve our hive, to make sure you all are protected. What I want directly coincides with what the boss wanted… wants… with his goal. I want to serve him to the limits of my meager ability, silent and invisible. Seeing all of you grow and succeed is what makes me happy, Six.” “Being with you is what makes ME happy,” Six glares at Five. Neither of them feels the other is happy at all in the current situation, so Five closes her eyes and boops Six. “I’m not sending you away.” “Good!” he turns around and starts walking, “Because I’m not going anywhere!” Five considers standing still and pointing it out when Six is a bit further away, but decides against teasing the drone any further. The current peace is too fragile for more jabs, so she picks up the pace and catches up with him. “Hey, look!” Six pushes past few dwarves again, Five’s presence silencing few mumbled complaints, “Sweetened, edible spider silk. Delicious and nutritious,” he reads a plaque on one stall where a mare is rolling a something foamy-looking on a stick. “If I say I don’t want any, will it stop you?” Five mumbles, but Six is already paying the vendor, “Such a waste of resources...” she shakes her head. Six returns with a huge stick he’s barely holding up and a pink blob on it almost the size of himself. “I’ll- whoah-” he stumbles when he tries to raise it up to Five’s muzzle, “I’ll make you see yourself the way I see you. Hmm? Try it!” of course, when he shoves it closer to Five, the heavy cargo makes him almost keel over and stumble forward again, “Oops, sorr- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Five, having been hit straight in the face by the mass of edible pink foam now covering her whole head, rolls her eyes, and licks a chunk off with her prehensile tongue. “Hmmm… it doesn’t taste half bad, actually,” she admits, finally seeing Six beam happily. *** “Boss will be so mad when he wakes up-” Drag. “-but it would be so much worse-” Drag. “-if he had to go down and bring-” Drag. “-all miss Eight’s bits back.” Eight’s mane in his mouth, Three finally enters the castle guest room the wall of which Eight demolished earlier while following the assassin. Eight’s body has stopped bleeding a long time ago, something which Three chose to interpret as getting better rather than complete blood loss. “STOP!” “WHAT THE-” “BY MURADIN’S HELMET!” Dwarf guards surround Three when he enters the castle hallway, one immediately rushing off to inform Granite. Three, blinking away sweat, gives the guards a dizzy smile, and says: “Can you… hospital… something…?” his head spins now that there’s someone else around to help. He feels weaker than ever before, possibly with the exception of back in the hive. Granite arrives at gallop, accompanied by a group of dwarves with a stretcher, stopping in front of Three and Eight with a horrified expression. “What happened?” when dizzy Three fails to answer immediately, Granite grits his teeth, “Castle infirmary, immediately. We’ve got better equipment than any of the hospitals. Three, are you alright?” “Together...” he mumbles, collapsing from complete exhaustion, “Must be… together...” Granite points at three guards who load Eight’s remains on the stretcher, and one puts thankfully unharmed Three on his back. “Loremaster,” the dwarves move as fast as they can, but one glances Granite’s way, “The queen is dead. Nothing can survive having their heart ripped out, snapped neck, and all limbs missing.” “Look,” Granite hisses back, “There’s one thing I learned from working with the king - these guys are tough. If Three brought the queen here despite her state, then he must believe there is something that can be done. Until she starts rotting, we’re taking care of her, and if Three wants to be by her side, he will be. Understood?” “Yes, loremaster!” everyone not currently busy salutes. “Anyway, I’ve seen the queen fight, and I’d hate to meet whatever did this to her. Let’s put castle security into crisis mode, blame it on Beerfest like before. Dark priests...” he sighs, “If they are in the city, escort them out. If they are in the castle - our standing orders remain. Kill them on sight. I can assure you that the idea that your whole family will be cursed forever if you harm one is just a myth. They are dwarves like anyone else. We can’t afford more problems right now.” “Yes, loremaster!” The called doctors and guards secure a room which will serve to ‘keep’ Eight ‘alive’ despite her body not breathing, bleeding, or reacting to anything. However, soon she’s on mechanical lungs and heart. Thankfully, despite massive differences, changelings are internally somewhat similar to ponies aside from their digestive tract, which lets the doctors hook Eight up properly. Not that it changes anything, though. Three is put on a bed next to hers, with his diagnosis being complete exhaustion. The last doctor switches off the lights on the way out, leaving only the faint pink shimmer of Three’s runes dispelling complete darkness. When everyone is gone, Three yawns, hops off of his bed, and puts his forelegs on Eight’s bed. “That’s not gonna work,” with a frown, he pulls off a pillow from his bed, and sits down on it right by Eight’s bed, putting his chin and nose on it next to her hooves, “I can’t afford to nap now.” The dwarves don’t know it. They just know that Eight’s body is for all intents and purposes dead. However, Three can feel the faint drain of love when he tries to send energy Eight’s way. What’s more important, though, is the much greater drain on Three coming from the hive mind. The runes on his body glow brighter, and then everything goes black. When Three opens his eyes again, he’s standing in the inky blackness of the hive mind. He feels Five and Six being together. He feels Seven, albeit very faintly, as if the changeling is focusing on something so hard he’s barely linked up. He doesn’t feel Two at all for some reason. Who he does feel despite the circumstances, is… “Miss Eight?” The warrior steps out from the blackness, and sits down, facing Three. “You are amazing, Three,” she says. “Well, if you and boss say that, then it’s gotta be true, right?” he grins, “I even surprised miss Scream.” With the mention of the alicorn, Eight’s gentle smile fades. “I need to have a serious chat with her. She knows what’s going on. She called the guy who chewed me up like that an ‘elder Vigil’, whatever that is.” “Never heard anything like that before,” Three shrugs, “I could ask mister Granite. He’s knows a lot of underground stuff.” “Yeah, that’s the thing. Scream doesn’t, and she identified the Vigil thing immediately. That’s why I doubt Granite will know anything, but it’s worth a shot.” “I can’t leave you alone, though. Dwarves have a ton of strange, beeping and whirring machines connected to you, but I don’t think they’re doing much. If I go away-” “I’ll immediately run out of love and die,” Eight nods, “I know. This is going to be a test for both of us, if ever I saw one.” “You don’t look bothered.” “Three… with what Granite said about boss being poisoned, I honestly don’t care about living or dying too much. Speaking of which, you don’t know anything about boss’ state, do you?” “Sorry, miss,” Three shakes his head, “I barely managed to drag you back to the castle. I’m about to pass out as is. I just wanted to funnel some more love into your body just in case.” “Three, you are the best friend boss or I could have ever hoped for, but I’m going to need even more from you.” Three simply nods. “Of course, miss Eight.” “You can’t go to sleep yet. I’ve gone through your head a little, and I know in what shape my body is. Without One, we don’t have anyone who knows how to stage a proper rebirth.” “Can’t you stay in my head like I did in the boss’? Or like the old queens and mister Wistful did?” “That’s what I’m doing now, and in such short time I’ve managed to almost drain YOU, and you are our little love generator. A lot of it was the physical effort you had to make to get me back into the castle, and another chunk was my body trying to stay barely alive, but you won’t be able to handle this. I hooked up to Two as well, which helped, but I lost my connection to her some time ago. Even if I connected to everyone, you’d all starve within days, maybe weeks even with full love gathering. I’m not too subtle with the mental stuff, so I can’t just mentally hibernate or whatever the old rulers did not to burn everyone out instantly. I need to stay connected to my physical body to avoid that.” “When you wake up-” “IF I do, Three. In our situation, if boss dies or is dead already, I might not even bother.” “WHEN you wake up,” Three cranes his neck to see up to Eight’s eyes, “What are you going to do to Two? I’m sure you know what happened.” Eight closes her eyes for a moment. “I’m not going to rip her to shreds if you’re bothered about that. What happened was my fault more than anyone else’s. The fact that she refused to save me is secondary. Though I might opt for a good spanking.” Three lets out a sigh of relief before tensing up again. “And what about the Vigil thing? Is it really that strong? I thought you could recover from worse wounds than missing heard, broken spine, losing all blood and limbs… now that I say it out loud, I feel kinda stupid. Sorry.” Eight pats his head. “I burned way too much love on the fight, and I was nowhere near full even before that. You see, when he punched me...” Eight bites her lip, “My chitin was hardened to maximum, but the force… it almost liquified me on the inside. I had to regenerate from that at first, but I thought it was magic or something, so I didn’t want to give him a chance to use it again. Alright, I was out of it, and completely berserk too, but I’m not braindead, so this was the point. I… I’ve never met a fully grown dragon, but I’m pretty sure the Vigil was somewhere on that level. What’s worse that my full strength didn’t make him even flinch,” she sighs, “That’s just to explain why I’m in way worse shape than I would normally be after getting stomped in such way.” “Well, I’m just happy you’re still here,” Three hugs her leg. He squeaks when Eight scoops him up with her forelegs like a small filly, and into a tight hug. “I didn’t have the time to show you properly how much I missed you, Three, and I wouldn’t know how to do it anyway. If you were the boss or One or someone like that, I’d blow their mind in the bed or fulfill any fantasy they had, but for you? I don’t have a clue. Is there something you want? Anything.” “Anything?” he lifts his head from her shoulder. “Absolutely anything that’s in my power. I mean it.” Three blushes, poking his forelegs together. “Well, I mean… well… you and boss… he’s always so happy when you mention that… you know, the things that drones don’t get to do... but I don’t even know what that is… I just nod and laugh not to seem even dumber than I am, but… I’m just happy when you’re happy...” Eight leans back, blinking in surprise. “I take it back!” Three covers his muzzle, “Drones don’t get to do that, so we don’t even need to know what that is. I just wanted to be in on the joke.” Eight’s muzzle pushes between Three’s hooves. She boops his tiny nose with hers, and then presses her lips to his in a soft kiss. Just the plush touch and slow motion of the warrior’s soft mouth makes Three wibble his forelegs nervously because he has no clue what to do, but only then he realizes how sweet miss Eight smells from this up close. To be honest, for a fraction of a second, he feels jealous of the boss, but that is drowned instantly by pure happiness about how lucky his best friend is to have found miss Eight. And miss Eight might look scary at times, but is Three’s good friend too. But... Three immediately decides that he definitely does like ‘that’. Eight breaks probably the chastest kiss she’s ever given to anyone, and rubs her nose against Three’s before putting him down. “Consider this lesson one, Three. I might not have much to give, but if you want to know more about ‘that’, then I’m sure I can show you the sweetest parts.” “Boss did scream a lot...” Three hesitates. “Don’t worry, you won’t,” she gently bites Three’s neck, making him shiver, then gives him another peck on the lips. Three now red as a tomato and looking at the black ground, still smiles despite his confusion. “Thank you, miss Eight.” “No, thank you, Three. For being by our side all this time.” Hive mind disperses, and Three finds himself sitting by Eight’s bed, still tired, but with his runes burning brightly. Miss Eight needs him to stay awake and slowly, very slowly, carefully, and without a break pump her body full of love. Boss needs miss Eight to be a the best boss he can be. Three can’t imagine being happy without them both. That’s how things must be, that’s all the little drone knows. Everything else is secondary. *** Not too far away, actually, in the darkness of a sealed room protected by a hallway filled with dwarf guards clutching their weapons and scanning the area for ANYTHING out of place, stands Two’s zebra stallion whose face is contorted with the purest form of rage as he stares at the limp body of the changeling king in such agony that any mentally proficient creature in the vicinity can feel it as their own. The dwarves don’t have the faintest idea that there’s an intruder in their most secure sanctum. The handsome zebra stallion with a build which would put any guard, model, or warlord to shame pulls out a talisman bearing the symbol of the sun from his saddlebag, and approaches the boss. Finally, the long chase is over.