//------------------------------//
// Arrival [Re-Edited] 
// Story: Changeling of the East 
// by AF FireFly 
//------------------------------//

"Thunder. Arctic Thunder. Arctic is my name, Thunder is my...other name? Salutations to you, the name of me is Arctic. Wait, that doesn't sound right. Gaahhh! Why are greetings so hard?"

I glare at my reflection; my frustrations boiling deep beneath my chitin. I wobble a little as the ship hits a particularly large wave head-on. I’ve been working on my introduction for a while now to pass the time. Yet, so far, every attempt has been… unsuccessful to say the least. Turns out, it hard to practice when you’re the only audience. I aggressively rub the fin on the back of my head to try and relieve some of my stress and frustrations. Perhaps it’s time to take a break and check my navigation.

*CRASH*

Except now I'm finding myself being flung head over heels through the air by the erupt stop. A most unfortunate circumstance, this is. 

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!" 

Fortunately, my fall is broken by a bale of hay purposely brought for this exact reason and not accidentally left from a previous voyage. I stumble out shaking all the loose hay off my chitin and examine the damage. The small mirror I have now laid on the ground in multiple pieces. Several jars of emotion-laced honey broke free of their storage crate and shattered on the ground. Whatever caused the crash, it ripped large holes in the hull of the ship near the bow. Luckily for me, Triumphant does not appear to be taking on water. It’s then that I notice a rocky outcropping through the gaps and ascend the stairs for a better view. My first sight is the sight of nothing, or rather really, really thick fog which makes nearly everything a hoof length away invisible. There is one thing that shines through the fog, however.

“Alright, who’s the genius that decided placing a tower in the middle of the ocean was a good idea?”

Said tower stands before me on the outcropping of rocks my ship has run aground on. Standing maybe a dozen stories high, nothing truly sticks out to me as the purpose of the solid white building. That is until my gaze reaches the top and notices a beam of light rotating in a full circle. Full of curiosity, I start climbing the rocks to get to the base of the tower. Upon arrival, I spot an entrance and proceed to carefully open the battered wooden door.

*THUNK*

Perhaps a little too battered as the entire door fell off its hinges and slammed to the ground. I uncover my eyes, waving the hoof around to disburse the cloud of dust picked up by the fallen door. I glance at the results and quietly whisper to myself, “Obviously it was engineered to do that and this is in no way, shape, or form my fault.” I cautiously enter the building casting my senses out for any other surprises. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. Except for the little light outside casting eerie, angular shadows across the dark room. The wind is also whistling through the entrance with a subtle whispering howl. Oh, and the sounds of crashing waves upon the rocks and the wooden creeks of my ship are also present. All perfectly normal. 

I try to take a step inside only to have my body refuse to move. I hear my heart thumping; pumping adrenaline through my system. I try to move again and manage to lift a hoof, but an increasing sharp whistling wind causes me to lose my balance and hunker down to the ground. I don't know why I feel so much unease. It's only an abandoned building in the middle of the ocean with a working light strong enough to shine through severe fog with dark enough shadows in every corner to hide just about anything my size and smaller. Nothing too unusual.

It takes a few moments, yet I finally manage to gain enough control of my body again to stand. Once again I try to take a few steps towards the stairs and this time I succeed. 

Take that fight or flight instinct! I am your better! 

I test the old staircase by placing a single hoof on the first step. My ears are greeted by the sound of creaking and groaning wood but otherwise, the stair holds. There goes my heartbeat trying to break out of my chest again. I power through my growing unease and climb the stairs. Upon reaching the top floor I am met with nothing more than a simple light bulb sitting in the middle of a room with a rotating mirror. I stare at the strange contraption only for the mirror to shift in my direction.

"Aaahhh! Too bright! Too bright! My eyes!"

I stumble backward while trying to block the powerful beam with my forehooves. My hind legs bump into an object and sends me falling onto my back into a daze. After a few moments of watching chirping chicks chasing stars, my head clears up enough to spot the object of my pain. A simple desk looms above me no doubt smug at the incident it caused. I stand, making sure that the light stays on my back, and examine the contents on the desk. A tattered map is rolled out across the desk. I easily make out my position by way of a big red circle with the words ‘You Are Here’. What puzzles me is that, according to the map, I am way closer to a landmass than I had expected. It also shows that I’m nearby some settlement called Manehatten.

Turns out, Mother Nature is a fan of perfectly timed reveals as the fog starts rapidly dissipating. My jaw hit the floor as slowly the aforementioned town is revealed in the distance. Tall structures and spires extend into the sky before my eyes. Small boats zipped across the harbor while ships of impossibly enormous sizes unloaded their hauls at massive dockyards. My mind reels back in shock as my knowledge of anything dealing with sailing is obliterated. All the while, the fog continues to lift revealing more and more of the town stretching across the horizon. No, town wasn't the right word. I was witnessing a marvel of pony engineering. Something considered a dream of fiction back home. 

A Metropolis!





As it turns out, crashing your ship on sharp rocks makes the damn thing not seaworthy. During my inspection, I discover that nearly the entire hull is riddled with holes from bow to stern. Honestly, I am impressed at this great feat as I didn't even know that I possess a natural talent for completely totaling ships. That's not to say this particular accident was my fault in the least. I will have to talk to the proprietor of the lone tower about the damages their stray building caused to my home.

With nothing else I can do for my poor ship, I begin swimming to the mainland. One may ask why I’m swimming instead of, you know, flying which is both faster and drier. Well, it comes back to that scar on my left wing. The incident which caused it hinders my ability to fly. I still can fly just fine, just not over long distances without difficulty. Besides, I have to be the only changeling alive who loves the water. The others just can’t seem to get over how our chitin tries to drown us when they enter the sea. All it takes is a little practice and some shifting to negate the negatives. Eh, their loss.

After about 15 minutes of peaceful swimming, I happen upon an empty beach a fair walking distance from the nearby city. While I trot towards the city, I start getting a bothersome itch in the back of my mind. It’s at this moment I realize I’m still in my natural form. The itch is an instinct from an age long past to hid our natural forms from others outside the hive. A burst of fire later and I'm once again the white pegasus with the blue and white mane from the day before I had set sail. I do a once-over to make sure everything is in place and then resume my walk to the city. I have to admit that at this point my excitement was starting to get the best of me as I didn't so much as walk as I did canter along the way.

Before long, I trot among the unusual block-like spires of Manehatten. I must have the biggest smile as I absorb my surroundings in a complete state of awe. At first, I keep my gaze upwards at the monolithic architecture reaching heights taller than any spire I've ever seen. Then I reached the center of the city. By the queen! Ponies! Ponies everywhere! In numbers never before seen by changeling kind. Emotions of every type drifted across my senses. Joy, indifference, anger, sympathy, empathy, fear, admiration, love, you name it. It was all... completely overwhelming.

Now, if you took any other changeling from the homelands and put them in my place, they’d probably be fine. After all, they were born and raised at the main hive where crowded tunnels and tight spaces are normal. Me though? I was born in the middle of nowhere at a campsite for traders and travelers and grew up next to wide open fields. Hell, even when I did move to the hive, I built a surface home and rarely went deep inside the hive. And now I find myself in the middle of the biggest city I’ve ever seen, surrounded by a multitude of ponies never thought possible, and to make matters worse, the area is saturated with so many different emotions that drawing in even a tiny amount makes me dizzy and sick.

"Hey buddy, are you okay?"

I snap my head around to stare down at my accuser. A lone stallion of golden coat and white mane eyes me with his purple irises.

"Yes! I am alright! Why wouldn't you think I'm not alright? Are you trying to make me not alright? Because it won't work!"

The stallion wisely takes a couple of steps back. He tries to hide his suspicious actions behind a worried face, but he can't fool me. After all, I can taste his… Right, the air is still a volatile mixture of everything. Still, he will not get the best of me! I return my attention to the overcrowded street just in time to collide headfirst into a tree. I slowly slump to the ground in a daze. Who knew trees could be super sneaky?

 I try to stand back up only to fail to find my balance in my lightheaded state. So out of it am I that I’m barely aware of being helped to my hooves. As the fog clears in my head I take note of the yellow hoof helping me keep steady. If there was one good thing to come out of this it's that the blow to my head knocked the rising panic right out of me. I indicate to the friendly pony that I can bear my weight and he backs away.

"Sorry about that, I guess I just got a little overwhelmed," I say, emphasizing my apology with a nervous chuckle.

"No worries, you'd be surprised at the number of ponies who have the same reactions," the stallion says, smiling in return. His smile soon falters as he takes a second look at me, "Whoa, what's up with your eyes?" My red and green eyes twitch against my will. 

Sugar sticks! He's on to me! I must employ escape tactic number 23. 

I squint in the direction just past the bemused earth pony and point with my hoof, "That's an odd place to hang a piano." Aha! The fool takes the bait and turns in a stunning 180-degree pivot. A true master of being deceived he must be. Alas! With no time to waste, I make my escape post-haste to the right in full gallop. Straight into the same tree from before. "Tuesday's... applesauce day," I mumble in a daze as I stumble my way down the street leaving the puzzled stallion behind, still searching for a non-existent piano.





The rest of my day does not go any better and I feel my initial excitement slowly dwindle into nothing as the shadows grow longer. All my life I never knew of a place bigger than the main hive back in the homelands and even that can’t hold a candle to this city. This place is simply way too big. Fortunately, I find a haven within the madness before I once again became overwhelmed by all the emotions in the air.

It is here on a grassy hill within the city park where I make my refuge. I’m tired, confused, and hungry. Emotions were plenty in the city sure, but they were so mixed and diluted that it was inedible for feeding in an indirect state. It isn’t an emergency at the moment. I’ve gone hungry before and I still have some stored love on Triumphant. I’ll just have to ration it until I can find a more direct source.

In all truth, I don’t know what to do next. Here I am, finally living my dream, standing on the land of paradise from the wonderful stories back home. The city surrounding me a true testament to what one can achieve through harmony! And I’m already homesick. I miss the flat open lands, the cool ocean breeze, the sharing of stories by the fireside, and most of all, I miss the friends I left behind.

I sigh as the last rays of sunlight disappear beyond the distant horizon. What was I doing here? One day in and I already crashed a ship, panicked in the streets, and probably received a concussion. It’s now that I realize there’s a big gap in my plans. What to do after I arrived here. Explore isn’t much of a plan on how to continue from here. Having my ship wrecked on the shore doesn’t exactly help either. 

Well, I can either continue sulking here, or I can come up with an objective. I’m a tenacious bastard and I’ve been in much, much worse situations than this! So I’m a fair bit out of my league here. I still did the impossible. I sailed across the great ocean and made it to a place others said didn’t exist or is greatly exaggerated in its tale of greatness! Me! A small changeling of the East who, to put it bluntly, should have died a long time ago in a land of fantasy. 

Alright, now with my motivation on the recovery, it’s time to figure out what to do next. Let’s see, what am I working with here? Well, Triumphant is beached and I don’t know how sustainable the land is further in-land so exploration isn’t on the table right now. So my scope is limited to Manehatten. So, what goal can I set-

‘I ask that you send me reports when you arrive. Should I and my daughters find this place within the hive's interest, we will be sending a team to integrate and learn all we can from these ponies…

‘...Farewell young one and know that no matter the distance I am with you.’

Memories of the Queen’s words buzz around in my head. The link! It’s still there! My connection with the queen is extremely faded but present all the same. The great distance of the link means it will take time to send information to and from one another, yet its presence fills me with great resolve.

I turn my gaze away from the horizon and back towards the sleepless city. I nearly forgot about the queen’s interest in a potential outpost. As I stare at the distant ponies I begin to wonder. Is it worthwhile to set up a sub-hive here? A headquarters for changeling harvesters? I’m unsure. I simply do not have a lot of information to sit on one side or the other. I believe I found my next goal.

As I watch the moon begin its watch I make a promise. I achieved my dream thanks to the Queen and now it is time to begin my responsibilities to the hive. Starting dawn of the next day I will go out into the city and find a way to create a sub-hive so that the homeland may prosper. Suddenly, my stomach decides to growl at me in anger for being left unattended. I amend my promise to say I will help the hive after I get my fill. Can't work on an empty stomach and all that.

With the Night Queen reaching her zenith I let out a yawn. Only now do I realize how stiff my hooves feel and how heavy my eyes are. I debated heading back towards my ship only to banish the thought when my wings protest my commands to move. This park is peaceful and comfortable enough for a good night's sleep. I circle to pat down the grass to make a proper sleeping area and lay down. Here’s to the beginning of a new chapter in life. And may the old one never return.