“Come on, we have to leave.”
She ignored me, still sniffling and hugging her father on the floor of the no-longer-secure refuge.
“Double Time, let’s go. Sombra saw us—saw the classroom. It won’t be long before every school in the empire is surrounded by brainwashed soldiers.”
Again, she gave no indication of hearing me. Her emotions were a chaotic whirlwind of anguish, fear, loss, and—somewhat bizarrely—acceptance.
“Miss Time…” I began for the third time as I approached her. The clack of my chitinous hooves as I stepped toward her was what finally broke her out of her grief—long enough to lift the dangerous end of Stalwart’s broken spear and awkwardly thrust it out toward me.
“Get away from us!” she screamed through wracking sobs. The spear wasn’t truly threatening in her hooves, not with the way it was trembling, but the fact that she was willing to wield it against me spoke volumes about her current state of mind. “What did you do to Headway?”
She’s in shock. It hasn’t dawned on her yet what just happened.
“Miss Time,” I said, raising a hoof and halting my advance. “I am Headway. It’s a long story, one we don’t have the time for right now. Just come with—”
“No!” she yelled, once again brandishing the ruined weapon in a way that I am sure she thought looked menacing, all the while trying to maintain some semblance of control.
Of course, there was little chance of that succeeding, considering her emotions may as well have been an open book to me.
“You’re not Headway. You’re not even a stallion! You’re obviously a mare of… some sorta buggy pony. You’re a… a... I don’t know what you are, but that’s my point!”
Once again, the thought flashed through my mind: there’s no going back from here.
“The word you are looking for is ‘changeling.’ My real name is Carina, and yes, I am actually a mare. The ‘Headway’ you knew doesn’t exist. I made him up when I entered the empire because I thought I needed to blend in. I can explain all that later, but for now, we have to hurry.”
She hesitated, tears welling up in her eyes again, forcing her to blink them away. “I don’t believe you. Headway would never have…”
A noise from outside caught both our attention. The sound of many armored hooves striking the street outside meant that we had run out of time even sooner than I had thought we would.
“Ugh, there is no Headway!” I said, exasperated, as I quickly battered her ineffective spear aside, threw a hoof around her, and called up the magic of my fire portal, coating us in green flames as we quickly sank into the ground.
A moment later, we stepped out of the ring of fire as it evaporated like mist around our hooves. I wasn’t overly picky about our destination, other than ‘the outskirts of town,’ so we found ourselves just inside the perimeter of the Crystal Heart’s aura. There were no buildings within a few hundred hooves of us, nor was there any snow, but it was still noticeably colder this close to the unfiltered frozen north than it was in town.
I took a moment to get my bearings. The fields of snow provided no clues, as the drifts shifted regularly depending on the wind, and the roads leading off in various directions had long ago been swallowed by the storm, leaving only the occasional crystal formation to mark the route.
In those few heartbeats of confusion—during which I made several mental adjustments to ‘plan b,’ which until that moment had been only a vague idea in the back of my head—I had taken my eyes off the girl.
When it dawned on me that no new insults, threats, or wracking sobs could be heard behind me, I turned around to find no sign of her.
She obviously didn’t run into the snowy fields, as there were no tracks, so it wasn’t hard to figure out what her intentions were. She had run back into the city, likely to return to the schoolhouse and her father.
I growled a bit as I raised my front hoof to pursue her, pausing before taking that first step as a chill ran through me.
A shadow passed over me, too quickly to realize what I had just seen, as something raced toward the palace overhead.
A shadow accompanied by fierce, unwavering emotions...
Sadness.
Anger.
Determination.
Compassion.
Hope.
In hindsight, looking back at the arrival of the Royal Sisters, it still surprises me just how many world-altering events can take place in such a short amount of time.
Their existence made my life extremely difficult for quite a while, and I am not sure if I will ever forgive them for the role they played in the loss of my hive.
The weeks that followed were among the hardest that I have ever had to face—before or since.
That was the largest pegasi I have ever seen, was the first thing that crossed my mind, followed by, If Warden has returned with the southern ponies, I have to catch Double Time before everything is lost.
I had barely come up with a plan to find Miss Time when the air around me vibrated with the force of a mighty voice.
“SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD,” it boomed so loudly that the nearby formations echoed the pony’s declaration of war in crystalline song for several seconds.
Mother of the Queen, what was that!?
The demand was answered by a deep rumble emanating from the suddenly darkening sky overhead, followed by Sombra’s voice. His words were soft as though he were right next to me, but it was evident that they were magically projected, emanating from the swirling black clouds above with no one discernable source. He wanted all of the city’s invaders to hear him.
“So much hatred! You speak of cowardice—have you forgotten whose domain you are in?”
“I CARE NOT WHAT DARK PACTS YOU’VE MADE. YOU WILL FAIL.”
“I can taste your wrath, and it is delicious,” came the tyrant’s mocking reply from the air around me.
“SILENCE, YOU CUR!”
The irony of the silence that followed was not lost on me. I took that opportunity to collect my thoughts and put a new plan into motion.
Obviously, Warden brought some powerful unicorn in addition to the pegasi I saw. If he was able to gather aid from two of the three tribes, there very well could be an army of them marching north, assuming that they weren’t here already.
The window of opportunity had closed on me.
I had failed in my mission to acquire the Heart. With free-willed combat-trained magic users swarming the castle, I knew I wouldn’t be given another chance.
I tried to comfort myself with the reasoned assumption that if the tribes were sending help to the empire, they must have ended the Wendigo threat to the south, and the hive could begin gathering food again.
The best I could hope for now was to return to the hive empty-hoofed with perhaps a consolation prize in tow.
Wrapping myself in flames, I sank into the ground. Once again, I stepped out of the void between worlds and into the familiar schoolhouse. I was gambling on the fact that Sombra was distracted and was pleased to find the only occupant of the classroom was the unmoving form of Stalwart.
I lifted him up in my magic, studying his features carefully. I would have to get this right on the first try with precious little time to note all the little nuances. Typically, a glance is enough to make an acceptable disguise, but my audience would be looking far closer than usual.
With a flash of green flame—which, for once, I didn’t even enjoy—I put on my newest disguise.
After a quick once-over, I floated Miss Time’s father into the corner behind my bedding and covered him in blankets. It wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny, but I didn’t plan to stick around long enough for anypony to start nosing around the place.
I picked up the pointy end of his broken spear, walked out the front door, and was met with a gasp.
“Daddy?”
I placed my free front hoof over my throat, feigning the injury he sustained in our skirmish and nodded, soaking in the massive amount of love pouring out of Double Time.
She threw herself around my neck in a familiar way, sobbing and squeezing like she had no intention of ever letting go of the ghost I was pretending to be.
It made me feel ill for some reason, but that didn’t stop me from storing as much of it as I could for what I was sure would be coming our way shortly.
“Okay, okay,” I whispered in a deliberately hoarse voice. “We need to go somewhere safe for now. The streets are about to be chaos.”
Sniffling, she disengaged and wiped her eyes.
“All right. Where are we going?”
The cave was serviceable. It was far enough away from the city itself while managing to remain just within the protective dome of light and love that kept the Crystal Empire warmer than the surrounding arctic landscape.
It was also reasonably secluded. The entrance wasn’t visible from the city, having a rather sizeable boulder-strewn outcropping jutting out in a crescent-shaped arc. The resulting cavern entrance rested almost parallel with the face of the mountain itself.
I would have called it a very peaceful, quiet location had it not been for the whimpering young mare curled up by the admittedly diminutive campfire that I managed to get started.
“Daddy?” came her weak voice, as though she were afraid to say what was on her mind. “I’m so glad you were able to break free of King Sombra. When you attacked Headway I…, I didn’t know what to do.”
I stared at her face for a moment before closing my eyes and nodding my head. It was a rehearsed movement, intended to buy myself time to think while giving her the impression that I was at a loss for words—one of the earliest and simplest misdirects taught to young infiltrators.
If the southern tribes manage to defeat Sombra, there’s no way I am going to convince her that we need to flee the city, which means I have to get us moving before that happens. Depending on how long the battle lasts, I may not have very much time at all to convince her to come willingly.
Would it be better to continue wearing her father’s face, retake the form of Headway or drop my disguise entirely?
She’s already seen me, so the damage has been done. No matter what, I can’t let her go now. The secret of the hive must be maintained, even if it means…
The final option presented itself to me in stark contrast to the alternatives I’d been considering.
Sure, I could convince her that Stalwart was taking her somewhere safe, but I didn’t know enough about the old soldier’s personal life with his daughter to pull off that disguise for much longer. Sooner or later, the supposed throat injury would have to heal, and I’d have no further excuse to remain silent.
Becoming Headway presented a different set of issues. She saw me drop that disguise, and how would I be able to explain the sudden disappearance of her father? She’d spend hours, if not days, searching the entire mountain for him. That was time I simply didn’t have to spare, and that was assuming she’d accept Headway back into her life at all.
Dropping my disguise seemed like the most logical approach. It would allow me to reserve the last of my love supply without spending some of it on maintaining the fictional body. It was possible, if doubtful, that after calming down a bit, she might be reasonable enough to accept my natural form and that I really was Headway the whole time.
Failing all of that, in my natural form, I could easily cocoon her. It would undoubtedly make feeding off her on the trip home much more accessible, even if I didn’t particularly enjoy the thought of carrying a cocooned pony half-way across the continent by myself…
“Daddy?”
It’s now or never.
I stood up and made my way over to the cave entrance. Once assured that I controlled her only route of escape, I turned back toward her and gave her what I hoped was a reasonable recreation of her father’s best smile. This would be the last memory of the old stallion she’d ever have.
“I’m sorry, Miss Time, but I am not your father,” I said sadly as I let the green flames of disguise magic wash away the illusion of Crystal Guard Captain Stalwart.
Double Time gasped as her eyes widened in disbelief and horror. “You! What did you do to my daddy? Where is he, and where’s Headway?”
She was visibly distraught, but as she had made no move to run from me or to attack, I allowed myself to sit, hoping it would put her at ease for the time being.
“I told you once before, I am Headway. Well, more so than anypony else could be. I’m sorry to say he doesn’t actually exist. I completely made him up the day I came to the empire. As for your father, I…, you watched me defeat him back in the schoolhouse. I didn’t mean to ki—I am sorry about how that ended up. He was being controlled by King Sombra, but he still didn’t give me any choice in the matter. I had to… do it.”
Why am I hesitating and sugarcoating my words? She is just a pony, only an ambulatory love buffet. I don’t owe her an explanation… do I? Ponies don’t apologize to the hay and flowers they grow, do they? Oh… By the queen, I bet they do… ugh.
“Look,” I resumed, “I’ve been living with you as Headway for what, five… six months now? If I wanted to hurt you, I could have done so hundreds of times over. It is actually in my best interest to make you happy, not horrified, and certainly not to hurt you.”
She looked to be on the verge of tears, and I wasn’t entirely sure she heard a single word I had said.
“Let me explain,” I sighed, unsure of why I was doing so. “My real name is Carina. I am a member of the species your bedtime stories refer to as changelings. Unlike the stories designed to scare little fillies into staying under their covers all night, we do not eat misbehaving ponies. That detail is a corruption of the truth… we eat normal pony food, mostly, just like you do. The story about eating ponies is actually based on how our magic works.”
I decided to gloss over the fact that changelings also consumed protein more directly than traditional herbivores do. We generally didn’t eat anything sentient, but I suppose there is no biological reason why we couldn’t. It seemed best to me not to bring that up with the young mare who was already hyperventilating in front of me.
“You see, we can’t use magic the way unicorns do. They can use their horn to draw in raw energy from the aether and supplement it with their own talent to move things around. Changelings can’t tap the aether. All of our power has to be stored inside us like a water tank. Whenever we use magic, the water tank empties a little bit. That magic is gone, used up. The problem is, we can’t replace that magic by ourselves.
“Our horn isn’t used to collect aetheric energy, it is more like a funnel. It absorbs magic directed at it in the form of emotions, condenses it until it becomes powerful, then stores it away—refilling the water tank. Certain emotions, like gratitude, joy, or love, are easier to pull into the horn and convert than others, and some emotions are outright unusable.
“Out there? All those mind-controlled ponies in the city? They feel nothing. The slightest hint of fear is all they give off. Without you and Warden, I may have been in big trouble.”
I thought that went well. It was surprisingly liberating to share a secret like that, and now that she knew that she was more valuable to me alive and happy than scared, or worse...
“Wait,” she said quietly. I could feel her nervous tension fading away, being replaced by confusion and settling on… anger?
“So… changelings are real, and you eat love? That’s… that’s horrible! You eat love, turn it into magic and blast it away into nothing once it is used up? Every fireball you throw is somepony’s fillyhood crush being dissolved. Memories of somepony’s mother making everything okay again by kissing their bruised knee after falling down the stairs are destroyed to fuel the telekinesis you use to lift a glass of water?
“Just now, when you made yourself look like my dad, you used magic to do so. You used magic you funneled out of me over the past few months. Did you eat one of my memories!? Did you use my love for daddy to… to… You’re… you are a monster!”
Okay, I didn’t expect that one.
“No, Miss Time, that’s not how it—”
An explosion in the city interrupted me, large enough and loud enough to be heard from our cavern refuge.
Sombra’s disembodied voice could still be heard clearly the entire time I was explaining things to Double Time. I had tuned it out since only one side of the conversation could be heard, and I was reasonably sure anything the tyrant had to say was either a threat or a lie. Now, however, I was paying attention again.
“So be it,” came his victorious, oily voice. “Such a shame.”
I figured the southern ponies wouldn’t have an easy time defeating him, but I expected the battle to last longer than it did. My own anxiety was building as I realized I was out of time. The single-minded hunt for Miss Time and I would begin again soon.
“Miss Time, we need to go,” I unconsciously repeated myself from earlier. “King Sombra just won against the ponies Warden brought back with him. He’ll be coming after us any—”
Again I was interrupted, though this time, the distraction was more than merely unexpected; it sent chills throughout my body.
A pony was laughing, a very dark and foreboding mania could be heard within that booming female voice which replied.
“You think you’ve found an ally in darkness? Do you comprehend the powers you were gifted with—the same powers I was born into?”
Oh no.
“Where do you think the shadows all go to hide from the precious light? Just who do you think stands against them? What you possess is a mere fraction of their might. The same might I stand unyielding against each and every night.”
“Stay back!” came Sombra’s voice, though it carried none of the triumphs it had just a moment before.
“You are nothing compared to them. You are nothing compared to me! You claim to know fear!? I shall show you true terror!”
“What… are you?”
The mocking chuckle that followed would have sent me into cold sweats had I been in a squishy pony body. Thankfully, chitin doesn’t have pores.
“I? I am a nightmare.”
There is somepony worse than Sombra… somepony Sombra fears. Somepony Sombra is losing against. Oh, my queen, I’ve got to—
Even my inner monologue was being interrupted. Just as I was about to lose focus and flee from this accursed empire, love source or no, a blow to my chest snapped back into the moment.
In my panic, I wasn’t paying enough attention to the angry pony in front of me. She had somehow acquired the partial spear I brought along with us and had attempted to stab me with it.
Once again, I was thankful for my carapace.
“Stop it,” I demanded, probably a bit more harshly than I meant to. Double Time wasn’t exactly a threat to me. She may have been related to earth ponies (honestly, I am still unclear if your average crystal pony is considered its own subtype or merely a slight physical mutation of their southern cousins). However, she still wasn’t strong enough to pierce my body’s natural armor.
Two more explosions rocked the empire in rapid succession, dislodging loose debris from the walls and forming slight stress fractures in the stone which made up the cave’s ceiling.
“We don’t have time for this!” I yelled at her, ineffectually.
She made no reply to my words other than to swing her head back and forth like a young dog playing tug-of-war; only instead of a rope in her mouth, she held a broken spear.
It didn’t take much effort to avoid her attacks, and some were so clumsy and weak that I didn’t even bother trying. They vibrated off my chitin harmlessly.
Each of her swings at me would have been entertaining under other circumstances, but as it was, her insistence on physically assaulting me was getting my last nerve.
The sounds of battle filtering in from outside the cave shifted subtly. The ground-shaking explosions seemed to stop momentarily, to be replaced by rays of dazzling magical light in shades of blue and purple streaking through the sky.
Where those beams of energy passed, whole buildings were leveled. When one of the purple blasts effortlessly ripped through the rock forming the cave’s camouflage, I decided it was past time for the final option.
“Enough of this. I’m sorry, Miss Time. I had hoped you might understand my position, but we really don’t the time to be wasting like this. If you won’t come willingly…”
I charged my horn with green light, holding it for just a split second as I locked eyes with the young mare who only then seemed to recognize that I finally meant to fight back.
I never broke that eye contact, even as I released the bolt of energy, which crossed the distance between us almost instantly, slamming into her chest and sending her flying.
Disbelief and sadness.
Her eyes, louder than her emotions, screamed against what was happening to her. As she came to an abrupt stop against the cavern wall, she cried out in pain before collapsing to the ground.
She lay there, unmoving, crumpled on the floor as I approached her with a second bolt charging in my horn.
“You dumbfound me, Miss Time,” I said to her unconscious body. “I’ve been doing this for quite a long time, you know. Nopony has ever impacted my mission as much as you have. It’s a shame you weren’t born a changeling. I think I might actually miss you.”
I stood over her as I readied myself for what was to come next. I never really liked this part of the job. It was messy and uncomfortable. I felt it building up in the back of my throat.
As I spat a gooey wad of waxy phlegm out onto her body, coaxing a second wad up through my throat, I found myself staring at her tear-streaked face.
Ten minutes later, it was done.