//------------------------------// // And There They Go Again On Their Own... // Story: An Establishment Of Exclusivity // by Snakeskin Ducttape //------------------------------// This story is written in front of a live studio audience. “Whaooouuuooouuuoouuoouuuuu… wwwhaoouuuuuu… kh-khaokh! Brrrooooohr...” “Hey, guys,” Sandra said, walking up to the bar in the mostly still club in the middle of the day, looking back at Lloyd sitting in a booth by himself, who was utterly lost to the world around him. “What’s he doing?” Barney the changeling was resting his head on the bar with his eyes closed, smiling slightly and tasting the air as Sandra sat down. Lloyd stared into some sort of project, surrounded by little bottles, a broken beer keg, pieces of an old curtain, and a pile of popsicle sticks. “He’s making a miniature replica of the Spencer Mansion,” Francis said. “Oh, cool!” Sandra said, her eyes lighting up. “Wheeaoooouuu…” Lloyd continued to himself. “... And providing his own ambient score,” Spencer added. “So I hear the purple wizard got her hooves on you guys,” Sandra noted, taking the glass of sparkly water that Francis offered her, and taking a sip. “How did that go?” “Hard to say, actually,” Spencer said. “I mean I think we explained clearly enough, but there were clearly some misunderstandings from some previous interviewees, and they probably thought they expressed themselves clearly as well.” “What misunderstandings?” Spencer and Francis looked at each other. — “So, I also want to ask you about this... grease deity,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Grease deity?” all three club owners echoed from the couch opposite Twilight. “Yes, my previous interviewee said that many ponie- excuse me, people, where you come from worship The Lard.” Twilight looked up from the scroll she was writing on to see three absolutely puzzled expressions. “Who was it that said that?” Lloyd ventured. “Pat, he said his name was.” After a moment of thinking, the three former humans’ faces relaxed from understanding and slight exasperation. “Ooh,” they said in unison. “What? What does that mean?” Twilight asked. “Pat’s Irish,” Francis explained. “He said The Lord.” — Sandra shook her head and smiled. “Pat.” “Yep. By the way, Spence,” Francis said, and slid over a piece of paper to his colleague. Sandra glanced over at the slip, and saw the… letters, spelling out what seemed like gibberish. Doo-doo-dooo-dooo-dooo doo-doo-dooo-do-do-dooo “Jurassic Park,” Spencer said, hardly looking at the writing. Francis just shook his head helplessly, as Spencer scribbled some gibberish of his own on the paper. “How do you do it?” “What? This?” Sandra asked. “We’re playing guess the score,” Francis explained. “With text.” Sandra rolled her eyes, but she still looked when Spencer slid the paper over so both she and Francis could see. “... Highlander?” Francis guessed. “The uh… the motorcycle chase music from Last Crusade?” Sandra said. “Robocop,” Spencer said, making Francis harrumph slightly in frustration. “Last chance.” “Alright, take this,” Francis said, and scribbled a new series of “dees” and “doos” under the previous lines. Spencer calmly took the paper when Francis was ready. “Song of Storms.” “Wha– Damnit!” “Yeah, you thought I was gonna say the Game of Thrones theme didn’t you?” Spencer said, and turned to Sandra. “He tried the same trick with that Wolverine movie and The Lion King.” Barney had come alive and was gently sniffing the air around the three ponies from behind Spencer’s bulk. Unlike the descriptions the former humans had received of how the changelings looked when they attacked Canterlot, Barney looked whole and healthy, with a slight sheen to his exoskeleton. “What?” Sandra asked, smiling slightly. “Nothing,” Barney said. Sandra raised her eyebrows at the changeling. “Well that doesn’t make me curious at all.” Barney groaned a little. “Look, I’m doing one of those things that don’t work if you bring attention to it.” “Which is?” Barney gave her a long look. “From what I gather, it takes a little getting used to being a changeling,” Francis said. “So is being a pony,” Sandra said. “Yeah, but at least we have the same number of senses and, besides the tails, mostly the same number of extremities as humans. Changelings can have a ton of them.” “Look, I was tasting something around you guys, I think I wanna call it camaraderie, and oh yeah, look, there it goes. It changed when I brought attention to it. “Quick, someone make a joke to bring attention to the weirdness of it all aaand… yes, now it’s back.” The ponies shook their heads at the strangeness of the changelings. “I am so curious to see what happens if you actually find someone to get all mushy-mushy lovey-dovey with.” “Obese, probably. Still willing to try it,” Barney said, and resisted the urge to push Spencer closer to Sandra. “By the way, keep your eyes on the vents tonight,” Barney told them, sniffing the air. “I think I can smell them there.” “Got it,” Francis said. — “Ah, finally back in Canterlot,” the stallion next in line said, and turned to Spencer. “Hey, did I miss Motown Monday?” “Yeah, I’m afraid you did,” Spencer said. “Don’t worry, it’ll come again.” “Oh… Oh well, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe!” the stallion said, mouth wide in an annoying smile. “Ugh, don’t remind me,” Spencer said, waving him through. “I miss the net, but not that part.” “Yeah,” the next pony in line, a mare, said, in a cartoonishly haughty voice. “You’re totally stuck in the retrozone. Sad-face.” Spencer winced, and gave the pleased mare a hurt look. “Why are you doing this to me?” he said, as he opened the door. Spirits were high and spirits were poured in the club that night, the soothing din and swaying of hundreds of happy people drinking and chatting and eating as the current band put down their instruments after a hearty applause and were welcomed around the tables and into the booths of their fellow former humans, while another band chatted amongst themselves as they made their way backstage to check their instruments. Francis smiled and casually leaned on his foreleg against the bar and chatted with Barney the changeling, currently looking like a scruffily handsome stallion, both of them keeping their eyes on the band as they prepared. “Where are they?” Francis asked. “The vent in the roof, to our left,” Barney said. “I think it’s just one.” “How are they feeling?” “Hmm. A little nervous when they got here, but now they’re excited and kind of relieved.” “Do they know you’re here and what you’re doing?” Barney’s easy smile looked a little contemplative for a moment. “Hard to say, but I think so. I think changelings give off emotions too, but rather than always doing it, they’re giving off deliberate scents to help communicate, like worry or encouragement, sort of like using hand signals when sneaking around.” He shot Francis a slightly apologetic look. “Maybe I’m giving off emotions with no control, maybe that makes me seem like a pony, or maybe I’ve totally misunderstood the whole thing. I’dunno, not raised in a hive, you know. At least not literally.” “That’s okay,” Francis said. “If he or she is staying put, we’ll go ahead.” “What are you gonna if you get him? Her?” “Don’t know. We’ll play it by ear. Thanks, Barney,” Francis said, as he moved away from Barney to move to Sandra on the other side of the bar. “No problem,” Barney said, failing to hold in a deep belch, and going back to nursing his drink. The audience’s attention was getting focused on the band as they were almost ready to play, and Francis leaned over the bar. “Hey, Sandra. You got that thing on your head working?” “Sure, so long as anyone just needs a hand or a flashlight.” “A hand will do fine. Don’t look right away, but the vent up to the right of Barney. See the rope?” Sandra glanced at the grate as she pretended to turn and look at Francis. “Yeah, I see it.” “There’s a changeling there. Can you pull it when I give you the signal?” “Sure. No problem.” The pony called Charlotte grabbed the mic and addressed the club. “Hey, everyone, good to see you all again. If there’s anyone new in here, we are Pending Band Name.” A cheer rose up from the patrons. It wasn’t the event of the decade, but the cheer wasn’t a formality either. “Thank you, thank you,” Charlotte said, smiling. “Alright, we have some requests we’re happy to play, and as you know, we’re happy to take more.” “Make the logo bigger!” someone shouted from the tables, to some scattered sniggers. Charlotte smiled at that. “We’ll see if we can make a filler recording out of that, yeah. But let’s see if we can’t work our way through last week’s requests first. I’ll be doing the lead to begin with, since Clive didn’t feel confident about this first song,” she said, and smiled back at the unamused-looking gryphon at the guitar. “♪Ooh, baby do you know what that’s worth...?♫” The crowd cheered and laughed as the joke dawned on them. The music started up for real just as Lloyd came out of the backroom, wheeling in a stack of crates, unpacking the bottles behind the bar. “Appropriate song!” Barney loudly said over the music, leaning over the bar. “How so!?” Francis said. “They’re in paradise!” Barney said, lightly indicating the vent with a nod. “Almost feels like a shame to rouse them.” “Don’t worry! We’ll be gentle!” Francis said, and spoke into Lloyd’s ear about what Barney had told him earlier. Francis and Lloyd took a few moments to enjoy the show and serve a few drinks, before they tapped Sandra on the wither and Francis went over to stand below the vent. As the song was winding down, a series of nods led to Sandra pulling the arranged rope on the vent, and down came a changeling, crashing towards the ground with an alarmed expression. Francis wasn’t quite the same size as Spencer, but he wasn’t a small specimen. He reared up and caught the smaller, black bug-pony around his wither, locking him in a friendly-looking gesture. “Hey there!” Francis said, smiling widely at the changeling. “You seem like you’re lost, friend.” The changeling eyes were wide, darting around to try and orient himself, but always finding his gaze locked by the stallion who held him tight. This wasn’t according to script. Some of the ponies around the bar glanced back at him, mildly surprised, before being distracted by the ponies on stage again, and it wasn’t because they were cocooned or anything like that. Ponies should be shouting and panicking for… several minutes at least, before their fear caused them to reach for torches and pitchforks. These ponies weren’t frightened at all, and it was hard to say if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “So, what brings you here?” The changeling could only open and close his mouth as he searched for words. “He wants a meal,” a stallion that smelled a bit like a fellow changeling said from the bar. “Hmm,” the stallion holding him in place said, before smiling widely as he looked at someone else, and hauling him down towards the stage. “You’ve come to the right place for that.” The patrons were looking at them with amused and slightly confused looks as they made their way through them. The band caught sight of them and looked at each other, puzzled, before they laughed and shook their heads, making space on the stage. On a stage, where a large crowd could, and did, see them clearly, was not the place for a changeling, but still there was no fear-fueled anger. These ponies, these creatures, were strange indeed. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an intruder,” Francis announced, putting some flair into his presentation. “Ooooh…” The crowd looked at each other, smirking. Anticipation and mirth with the slightest hint of danger to it, but no real anger. The changeling tried to make himself as small as possible. “I feel we need some effort into making up for that. Don’t you?” Francis asked the crowd, who let out a collective, pirate-y yarh and chuckled in agreement “So feast your eyes on this one, ladies and gentlemen!” Francis said, and removed his foreleg from around the changeling, pushing him in front where he stood, exposed, in the limelight. “A fine and available specimen, tall, dark, and handsome!” Francis announced, as the crowd started laughing and leaned forward in excitement. Francis gave the changeling a scrutinizing look. “Or at least two of the three. Maybe one and a half. What’s your name?” The wide-eyed changeling looked back at the stallion smiling widely at him, opening his mouth again but finding himself unable to say anything. “The quiet type, eh? What’s a good name for this fine chitterer?” “Manny!” came a voice from the crowd. “Manny?” Francis said, before rallying and smiling again. “Manny it is. Manny can be yours, right now, do I hear twenty bits? Twenty bits is the starting price.” “Here, sugar!” a thestral mare called. “Twenty bits!” Francis confirmed. “Do I hear twenty-five?” “Twenty-five!” another mare called from a dark booth called, and Manny thought he saw a worryingly scaly form in the darkness. “Thirty!” the previous voice called. “Shut up, Lashanda!” the mare in the dark booth said. “I need this! And you still owe me for the move. Thirty-five!” “Uh uh! I ain’t givin’ you no free pass for that. Anyway, I made you a leg warmer for it,” the thestral said, and turned to Francis and Manny. “Here, honey-bug. Forty bits!” “Forty-five,” Clive the gryphon said from the back of the stage, to a general murmur of surprise from the crowd. “Clive? You don’t even like dudes,” a stallion from the crowd said. Clive just smiled slightly and shrugged. “Doesn’t need to be one. Do you?” Clive asked Manny. Manny, who was by now thoroughly enjoying himself, just smiled and shook his head. There was a moment of silence in the club. “Good enough for me,” a stallion said. “Fifty!” Manny was hit with a wave of emotions as the excited feelings doubled, along with the volume. “Fifty-five!” a fellow changeling said between giggles, this one a pink-haired with her mane in a ponytail. Manny kind of hoped she wouldn’t be the winner of whatever was going on here. Love from fellow changelings tasted like lettuce. At least normally, this one seemed to have a different scent. Half the attendants were simply laughing merrilly as the offers kept pouring in. Francis, and Lloyd over at the bar as well, had to struggle to keep their own laughter back as the offers kept pouring in. A while later, the auction had to come to an end with the thestral mare unabashedly flying up to the stage to claim her prize, to the disappointment of many of the bidders, and the laughs and wolf-whistles of others. The thestral just gave them a knowing look. “Oh you just jealous, y’all, and you know it!” she said, and turned to Manny. “C’mon, honey-bug, I got something to show you.” The crowd gave a recognizing murmur of approval to that, and clapped as they walked back towards the exit. Manny was starting to feel both happy and dizzy from all the levity and anticipation in the air. “Congratulations, Lashandra,” Francis said, and turned back to the band, who were laughing at something Charlotte said. “So, are you guys ready to continue the show?” The band nodded and started retaking their positions, as Francis stepped down from the stage. “We sure are, and we’ve decided that there are songs that are just too fitting not to play right now,” Francis told the crowd. “Hope you’re ready for something slightly wilder.” Manny’s blissful expression started sinking the moment they started nearing the exit. “What’s wrong, honey-bug?” Lashanda said, worry visible on her face. “He doesn’t wanna go out in public. It’s a changeling thing,” Barney said from his seat by the bar, over the sound of the band plonking their instruments and doing some slight adjustments to their equipment. Lloyd pointed a non-existent thumb over his shoulder. “Backroom, take the couch, just clean up after yourselves." “Perfect!” And with that, the two disappeared from sight. “Alright, that should do it,” Clive said. “Hit it!” There weren't any power drills available for the former humans to get the true sound necessary, but the song worked regardless. Parts of the crowd, the ones who knew the lyrics, started laughing at the choice of song, and pretty soon the rest were smirking as well. “♫... When you need a man of action, I’m ready to make my move. Like the shotgun shot, Johnny on the spot, there’s nothing I can’t do! “Everything you’re looking for, you can find in me. I’ll be anything you want, anyone you need… ♪” — “And so the grain reserves are, as they have been for the last eight hundred and twelve years this day, fully stocked, with an excess of fourteen percent more than the storages can hold, and that’s counting the ‘temporary’ storages.” Princess Celestia sat and paid attention in a respectful manner on her cushion as she listened to Raven, her teacup now empty. Luna, on the other hand, slouched against the table, looking forlornly at her empty coffee cup with the words, ‘It’s the moon, stupid’, written on it. “Send a message to Gryphonstone,” Celestia said. “Let them set the price, and...” “And suggest that we... waaaaant…” Luna started, eventually closing her mouth and shaking her head to herself as she tried to think of what Gryphonstone could afford to get sacrifice that wouldn’t be an insultingly low price for keeping their population fed, that Equestria also could find a use for. “Copper,” Celestia suggested. “Copper,” Luna confirmed, nodding to Raven, before turning to Celestia. “Why copper?” “The humans like copper,” Celestia said. “I think they use it in their inventions.” “Ah, yes, uhm… about that,” Raven said, adjusting her glasses. “We’ve had several reports. Uhm, complaints actually.” “Specifically?” Celestia said. “Well…” Raven started, clearing her throat and adjusting her glasses as her gaze skimmed across the roll of paper in her magic. “Complaints from House Set, House Crust, and House Blueblood, among others, about… various things. Complaints about rude reception, poor clientele… there’s one here from today that says that tonight, there was an imperceptible sound that woke up all the dogs in Canterlot.” “And my personal guard,” Luna noted, and turned to her sister. “What are you going to do? They’ve rejected you, us, from their premises, despite many olive branches. Will you give them a whole orchard?” “Perhaps,” Celestia said, putting her hooves together and thinking, a calculating smile on her face. “I wonder if their defiant ways can stand up to actual adversity.” “Toying with them?” Luna asked, an eyebrow raised. “Not as such, no,” Celestia said. “I’m just wondering if they’d ever want me to step in.” “I also have a message from the uh… the owners,” Raven said. “Oh?” “Yes, it’s… a poem, from somepony called Lloyd, to Luna.” Luna’s body went rigid, and her face turned purple. “It’s… it’s something about how ‘humans’ have conquered, uhm, their moon,” Raven said, struggling to understand what was meant by that. “And he’s wondering if you want him to tell you about it.” Luna’s face was shifting from purple to red. — It was early morning and Spencer, Lloyd, and Francis hadn’t bothered closing the club. It had been a pretty intense night, and half the patrons were still around, only now they were collapsed in the booths and on the floor. Lloyd, his head on the bar, softly opened his eye as a shape stumbled past. It was Manny, swaying slightly as he looked up towards the vents he had come from. “Door’s over there,” Lloyd croaked out, waving at the exit with his hoof. Manny looked at the doors as if he had never seen them before, and nodded unsteadily at Lloyd, before gingerly stumbling towards it, letting out a deep, silent belch as he did. Lloyd groaned as the light spilled in from the doors. Last night had been a big success, but the last few hours sleeping had been terrible, and he wondered if Luna perhaps wasn’t appreciating his efforts, or if he only had himself to blame.