//------------------------------// // 3. A baa-d day! // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// A little orange dragon with purple fins slowly woke to the bright morning sun, hopefully guided by Celestia. Princess Twilight wasn’t nearly as good at doing it and the dragon named Smolder would never tell her that to her face. She faced a new day with her bright blue eyes wide open. She rubbed at her horns that came from the sides of her head and pointed straight up and slowly dragged herself out bed with a loud yawn that sent small burst of flames from her mouth. -Ponville, School of Friendship, Smolder- I couldn’t wait for Gar-Gar to come visit me, my brother might actually like a change of scenery. Aside from Huoshan, the dragon lands were a bit… okay, let’s face it, they are dreary compared to everything else. I mean when you see Ponyville, you see colors, bright smiles and friendly locals. You go to Huoshan and you’d see that the longma had a civilization running and a large cultural base. The longma were our cousins and they already had more stuff than us. Huoshan was the main, and possibly only, tourist destination in all of the dragon lands. Dragons have a large amount of cash and we could create towns if we wanted to, we were just lazy and greedy about our hoards. We had the longma and Huoshan after all, but they had built that themselves. Well most dragons were lazy, I was actually completely into this friendship thing. Didn’t think I’d have this much fun or be this close to so many odd individuals. “Morning Smolder!” The bright cheery voice of Ocellus brought a big grin to my face, it reminded me of how we first were when we came here. The bright blue bug pony with the cyan eyes and ladybug style carapace was probably the best roommate I could ask for, since she was quiet a lot of the time. The glittering mane frill, wings and tail were a cute pink color and well… Ocellus already knew about my passion for cute and silly stuff. I could be myself around Ocellus without having to act like dragon culture might want me to. Gar-Gar certainly got enough ribbing for his love of bongos and poetry, right up until that saved the day for us. Also, nothing was cuter or sillier than Ocellus herself, it’s embarrassing that I keep forgetting that Ocellus can feel everyone’s emotions and she obviously knew how I felt about her. We're still dancing around the particular issue of 'us'. Yes, my brother Garble may still be a bit of a jerk, but he was getting much better about it. I was at first rude and didn’t see the point of coming here to the friendship school, now I can see that Dragon Lord Ember had made a good call with me. I was not going to cause big problems and I had a nearby friendly face in Spike if I needed a dragon somewhat close to my age to talk to, plus actually trying new experiences opened up the entire world to me. Ocellus was a meek and shy individual when we first met, trying to hide in plain sight. At least she was until we became friends, even then she was still somewhat shy like professor Fluttershy. She was more outgoing to those she knew and I didn’t think it was possible for her to hate anyone, she was the most studious friendship student in the school. I'd certainly give her straight A's with pluses for being a good friend. I had once wondered why changelings were so bad at understanding holidays like Hearth’s Warming, or even Hearts and Hooves day, especially if they were so good at infiltrating places with their shape shifting ability. Apparently changelings are a bit culture blind. This led to some of the ways one could easily discover a changeling as they couldn’t mimic any cultural norms, at least not without extensive study or going completely native. This certainly explained Ocellus’s deep rooted interest in pony culture. Going native was its own odd kettle of fish, especially when a changeling transforms to look like a pony for so long to the point that they actually forget what they originally were. They certainly made for great method actors in that respect. Becoming the mask actually scared a number of changelings and I constantly assured Ocellus she was fine just the way she was, that she could even be who she wanted or choose to be. There are hidden depths to all of us oddballs that came here to study at the school of friendship, I learned a thing or two about Fluttershy’s hidden depths when she talked about her Abyssinian friends. That Fluttershy was friends with what sounded like quirky and annoying feline jerks really threw me for a loop, then again she was also friends with Discord the ‘Lord of Chaos’ who was also still somewhat a jerk himself. I guess that’s kind of Fluttershy’s thing and I was friends with my griffon buddy Gallus, so I could kind of actually see the appeal somewhat. “You must be really excited to see your brother.” Ocellus chirped as she read a book on magical plants below me. “You better believe I am, I want to spend the day with him and introduce him to my friends.” That and you Ocellus, I really kind of wanted my brother to like you. I think things have gotten better now that our various cultures were mingling, we were the first class of the friendship school and we wouldn’t be the last if we had anything to say about it. -Ocellus- Smolder was really brave, but she still hid the fact that she liked dressing up and doing cute things. I’m actually glad Thorax gave me the opportunity to be a representative for our race and I’m glad that I’ve been doing everyone back home proud. Only… Ponyville seemed more like my home now. It felt strange to admit that to myself. Thinking back on it, I wouldn’t have been able to get into cheerleading without Smolder or Yona. I’m not exactly that brave, which is why I asked Yona and Smolder to join with me. A yak like Yona was never exactly going to be the most graceful cheerleader, but we managed to make it work out and it took a lot of effort. Smolder even got to wear a cute costume without feeling embarrassed by being in front of everybody, she was adorable in it. Yes, life here wasn’t bad and there were thankfully no more thousand year ‘can of worms’ for ponies to deal with, don’t know why anyone would put so many worms into one can. Maybe it’s a pegasus going fishing thing that translated into big squirmy problems being sealed into a tin can? Other cultures were a little hard to understand sometimes, which is why we changelings were a bit weird when we took things too literally. The barbed Q’s incident said as much, to think it was just grilling food over an open flame and not making large, painfully pointy, Q shaped objects out of chicken wire. How were we this bad when we spent most of our lives, after more than a few hiccups with several other races, primarily among pony culture and seemingly sneaking into it almost seamlessly at times!? At least I didn’t have to think too hard about it today… oh wait, Smolder was heading towards the bathroom before me! I quickly put my book down. While reading about wish granting flowers or poison joke was nice, I really needed to use the bathroom before smolder did. I learned my lesson from the last few times. “No wait, you always use up all the hot water Smolder!” I yelled as I flew after my favorite dragon friend, mostly because she was my only dragon friend… that was beautiful and looked nice in a dress. “Thought that’d get you out of study mode. Fine, I’ll wait on you, just make it quick. Also the book better be interesting.” Smolder sent me a smug smirk as I moved into the doorway. “The history of how comic books got started was a curious subject for you the last time you left me alone with one of your books.” “Thank you Smolder, I thought you would find that really interesting too!” I was always trying to get Smolder interested in reading, dragons weren’t really big on education. Even griffons knew the importance of that, but with them it would cost you at least two legs. Good thing the friendship school has free scholarships for those actually willing to put in the time to grow friendships! -An hour or so later, outside Ponyville’s train station- I was walking with Smolder, as I was somewhat eager to meet her brother too. The train unloaded and my mood immediately soured when I saw a lambkin getting off the train with the diplomats a distance away. “Whoa, I’ve never seen such a grumpy look on your face before, are you alright Ocellus?” Smolder gave me a concerned look and I sighed. Lambkin and changelings didn’t exactly have the best history. Knowing what I do now, I can understand exactly why lambkin were considered ‘changeling bane’. Their culture wide paranoia really worked against us, they had somewhat sharp memories and would know if something was even slightly out of place. “It’s nothing Smolder, I just have… issues… with a lambkin being here.” I watched as Smolder sent a curious glance to the lambkin with the two Canis Minor puppies, she was standing near the dragons and talking to a longma. The puppies I didn’t mind as long as I didn't try to disguise myself around them and the longma could even be a future friend of mine. As for the lambkin, I did mind and I think I hated myself for immediately hating her on sight just based solely on the principle of what she was. “A lambkin? Why is she hanging around the dragon diplomats?” Scratching at her right horn, Smolder gazed curiously as the lambkin and her brother, Garble, talked about something. “Also what issues could you have with lambkin? They are completely harmless and are notably the least aggressive intelligent beings in existence.” “You’d think that wouldn’t you? They do look ‘oh’ so innocent…” Why was I receiving such a worried look from Smolder? Has she never heard me be sarcastic before? “So… that’s a strong opinion, what’s causing it?” Smolder couldn’t possibly know that seeing a lambkin would ruin my day so thoroughly, I didn’t feel like explaining myself at this moment. “Lambkin are known for being the weakest, most timid race in the world. I even think you have something in common with them.” “WE CHANGELINGS HAVE NOTHING IN COMMON WITH THOSE… er… sorry!” I had caused a scene and now I felt a bit guilty for attracting so much attention from the ponies meandering around us. “Whoa… loudest I’ve ever heard you be.” Smolder scrutinized me. “So what’s the deal Cell?” “Look being culture blind might have been a part of the problem, but you are right in that lambkin might be the weakest people around. To changelings however, they are known as changeling bane. You know, back when we were still love sucking menaces to society.” I sat down and we weren’t going to approach Garble or the dragon diplomats, I don’t think I could stand to be a near a lambkin quite yet. “How do I put this, lambkin should have been the easiest prey for us to get.” “They aren’t? What was the problem, you’ve already hinted that culture was a part of it. How could the most panicky and easily spooked beings around cause changelings any kind of trouble?” Sighing at Smolder, I decided to be truthful and upfront with her. “Back when we were starving for love, Chrysalis thought they’d be easy targets… I’ll just say that they weren’t and we found that out the hard way.” I closed my eyes and wrapped my front hooves around myself. Changelings stayed away from lambkin for good reasons. “Yes, they look timid and helpless to you, but lambkin are monsters to us changelings. They caused us a lot of painful nights of starvation. Even if it was the wrong way to go about living for us, we still needed the sustenance at the time. Cocoons had a tenth of their effectiveness on them and they always got out, not only that, they always were quick to figure out if there was a changeling infiltrator if they took even one lambkin. One changeling was discovered five minutes after infiltrating the lambkin for being too perfect in his disguise, how does someone even be too perfect!” “Well they can’t exactly do that now.” Smolder crossed her arms and quirked an eye at me and her emotions seemed to be blaring full blast at me plain as day. Those emotions were basically telling me to calm down and to think logically. “You don’t need to steal love Ocellus, changelings are not like that anymore… 'you’re' not like that anymore. So shouldn’t you let bygones be bygones, maybe bridge a gap to make a friendship with just one lambkin? She actually looks like she’s part of the escort for the diplomats. Would it really be that horrible? I didn’t think I could be friends with a griffon, a pony or… a nice changeling… but here we are.” “I know they can’t cause problems for us anymore, but there’s still going to be issues between us and ‘those’ obscenely paranoid things.” After wincing, inhaling and exhaling slowly, I eventually sighed loudly and decided that Smolder was right. “I’ll… I’ll try to ignore the lambkin’s presence, come on let’s go see your brother.” “This seems personal to you, did something happen?” Smolder’s question made me flashback to that day. I remember the growling and huge teeth of a Canis Major standing over me. I didn’t want to say anything further, especially not after my infiltration went badly before it had even started. The lambkin that led the canine away kept shooting me curious glances, the four puppies were still eyeing me with ill intent. I didn't even quite make it into the settlement before I was accosted by that big beast. Changelings do not mess with canines, especially not a Canis Major. They always know… “I... don’t want to talk about it Smolder.” I really didn’t, I was really young and foolish at that time in my life. -Pom- So far, so good. We were just exiting the station in a group and would be heading towards Sugar Cube Corner, this place was... nice I guess… now if it wasn’t next to a dangerous forest full of strange or creepy monsters. I was at least able to work out my differences with Garble and even got into a discussion with him about limericks. He was fairly interested in limerick style poems when I mentioned them and I was fairly interested in his bongo playing, even mentioned he could probably find a few books on music or poetry here. It wasn’t long before we ran into a dragon and a… oh… a colorful changeling. We stared at each other flatly, I didn’t know how to react to her and her general shape looked vaguely familiar to me. I couldn’t quite put my hoof on where though. The changeling eventually chose to ignore me and turned to Garble when the small orange dragon introduced him to her. While I was okay with changelings as they had apparently ‘changed’, I was still going to be somewhat wary around one. Not that changelings could really do much to a lambkin, it was really odd that we were the anathema to changelings. We weren’t immune to magic, but anything else a changeling tries to do to us was never actually going to work. We made our way along until we met up with Princess Twilight’s entourage at the front of Sugar Cube Corner. I hadn’t said a single word to Ocellus, but I could almost feel her enmity for me. I didn’t feel like bringing up past trauma that any lambkin might have caused to changelings, but I would certainly say they deserved it. I was not going to start anything, but I did have something to say to someone. “Fizzlepop, your… feline nuisance wouldn’t happen to be around would she?” I asked coolly. “No, she’s off having an adventure with her sister’s family.” The unicorn with the broken horn answered back. “Nice to see you again Pom, how has Huoshan been lately?” “Warm as always, though it has been a bit cooler when the spirit of the volcano became halfway dormant. The last several times your nuisance was in Huoshan, she caused a few incidents. I can’t actually complain as long as she’s not around here or there and doing something crazy. So today should honestly be a…” I was interrupted. “I’m truly sorry that she causes messes, but don’t finish that sentence!” Fizzle suddenly seemed very alert, her wild bright blue eyes darted about in a panic and her horn sparked wildly. “I know Ponyville looks calm right now, but saying anything like that makes something bad happening inevitable. That’s especially true around here! Twilight wants a calm and easy party with her friends, on top of the obvious diplomatic stuff of course, but she still wants it to stay ‘relatively’ quiet.” “It is being calm, nothing too bad could be happening this day.” A goat said jokingly as she walked by us out of the bakery shop pulling food from a sack with a frowning sticker on it. “Darn it all, we’re switching to high alert after that. Code Pooch, someone just screwed i-h... up!” Fizzle was certainly serious about this, because all the guards with her went on high alert and were all wide eyed. They could give lambkin a run for their currency in paranoia. “Hopefully these trainees are rated for Ponyville levels of madness.” “Isn’t that the code we named after that diamond dog waitress named Brenda?” One of the pony guards with Fizzle suddenly asked. “Yes.” At Fizzle’s answer, all the guards paled visibly. -Hours later- Nothing seemed to have happened, but the guard’s heightened paranoia was beginning to make me quite paranoid too. Fizzle seemed to be looking at every corner and shadow waiting for something to happen. Other than the changeling, Ocellus I believe, sending me looks of distrust and possibly a mild amount of hatred, everything was turning out alright. “Well nothing has happened so far Tempest, maybe it was dud?” Twilight offered as she walked out with the dragon diplomats and having spent a good time with her friends. “Finally, Twilight Sparkle, say hello to your demise!” A pony in a cloak raised an artifact into the air standing on a roof across the way. “For this will take you to The Great Grogar and he shall rule all of Equestria!” “Okay, before you do anything, can you tell us which idiot got the Sieve Precarious out of the deep trench the Royal Guard put it in? I mean the royal guard spell shielded that thing to Tartarus and back, buried it in cement and then made it darn near impossible for anyone to get without a concerted effort. I seriously want the name of the being I’m going to beat halfway to death with my bare hooves after this.” Fizzle commented dryly and loudly. “Also, I really hate Grogar cultists like you. Your always annoying, but never really successful at anything other than causing problems.” “His name was Diving Bell and he had the assistance of a dumb little goat who thought she was going to keep this treasure that will end your reign, for I have modified it to take all of Ponyville somewhere else other than the chaos dimension!” The hood fell down revealing the female unicorn. “I am only telling you this because I am going to be successful, for I am Poise De’ File, so welcome to your new home... Tambelon!” The grey furred and dark red haired unicorn with green eyes activated the artifact while laughing maniacally and it created a portal to a hellish looking place from anyone’s nightmares in front of Princess Twilight and the dragon diplomatic team. The place beyond the portal didn’t look like it had seen the actual sun in a long, long time and it started to suck us towards it. “Everyone protect Twilight!” Fizzle, shouted while I was giving my own orders. Twilight Sparkle, the winged and horned purple pony princess moved forward slightly while lighting her horn. “Woof, Ruff, get the diplomats back inside!” My puppies moved into position to start herding the diplomats back into Sugar Cube Corner along with Gai Jin who agreed with the sentiment. The portal started to grow larger and I could feel it trying to suck us all in. Only for Twilight to launch her magic at it and she even started containing it, but it wasn’t getting any smaller. The other guards were holding Twilight down to prevent her from being sucked in and creating a barrier around her while Fizzle and Poise started launching magical blasts at each other. I looked around for what I could be doing during this when I saw a goat, the very same one that had made Fizzle order the 'Code Pooch' thing earlier. “You think I be stupid, well who would be giving up so easily after that hearing kind of compliment?” The goat leapt from a nearby rooftop onto Poise and started battering her with her bare hooves, thus the two began struggling over the artifact. Things might actually… I noticed that Garble was having trouble. I ran forward and grabbed him to start pulling him away from the portal, I was soon joined by his little sister and her changeling friend. We actually managed to get him to get a good grip on the mailbox. I looked up and saw the artifact that created the portal go flying off the roof for the street, my grip slipped a little and started to tumble away from them. I was grabbed by Smolder and her changeling friend Ocellus grabbed her by the tail when she slipped and was pulled in by the suction too. That poor goat fell off the roof and just landed roughly in the street and was now being drawn towards the portal too. Everyone heard a shattering sound and turned towards the artifact breaking on the ground, the portal shifted violently and increased in strength finally sucking the goat in. Ocellus quickly lost her grip before Garble could grab onto her and the three of us almost went flying straight into the portal. “Hold on to me!” I dug my hooves into the street, but I couldn’t resist the pull. I tried to use my fur to anchor myself to the ground, but I was nowhere near being as capable as Paprika was and just coated my hooves to resist a tiny bit harder. The portal’s suction increased in strength for a second and I found myself pulled off the ground and towards the portal. “Woof, Ruff, get back to Tianhuo and be good puppies for Baa-baa!” I shouted and then let out a few sharp barks, the last thing I saw was that Twilight had captured Poise before the portal closed, so that was a good thing at least. “Smolder!” The last thing I heard was Garble shouting for his sister. What was going to happen to us? Where were we going? How much danger were we in?!? Hopefully we were going anywhere besides Tambelon, it didn’t look like a very nice place to live or visit! Also I think I might be blacking out from a pani…