//------------------------------// // 33 - Shadow of Twilight // Story: The Hollow Pony // by Type_Writer //------------------------------// I wasn’t familiar with the shapes as they descended upon us in a swarm of six, but Maud was. “Changelings!” She barked, the word itself an order, as she drew her great stone club onto her back, then swung it wildly in a wide arc. Wind rushed past as the boulder swiped through the air, and it was a testament to Maud’s strength and balance that she wasn’t pulled off her own hooves by the weight. The swing missed the changelings by a mile, but it wasn’t meant to hit them; the swing would have been deadly if any of them had stayed close, so it forced them back, and gave the rest of us time to react. Gilda let out a war cry—which sounded like an eagle screeching with the deep, rumbling lungs of a lion—and she leapt back as she took wing, her bow already drawn in her claws as she picked a target. By the time I drew my sword, Star Bright had already begun to fumble for his revolving pistol, but his magic slipped as he grabbed for it. By the time he’d unholstered his firearm and drawn a bead on one changeling, another was on top of him, and he only managed to fire a single shot before he was tackled to the floor by a black, chitinous blur. Smoke exploded from his gun as the shot went wide, and a distant window shattered—a miss. But it gave me a smokescreen to hide from the flying creatures, and I leapt into the cloud of gunsmoke to pull the attacker off of Star Bright. I pushed through the pungent smoke towards a dark silhouette—too dark. But by the time I’d readied my sword, the changeling spotted me...only for a massive stone club to swing down through the cloud. The changeling disappeared in a grisly crunch, as the pony-shaped bug was smashed to paste between the marble floor and the granite club. I was spattered with blue blood—by the wind, I pretended it was just blood—as the smoke cleared from the jetstream of the swing. Maud gave me a nod, before she turned on a hind hoof and swept her gore-spattered club once again at head height, which smacked another changeling out of the air. It bounced off the floor a few times as it rolled away, leaving blue smears every time it landed. We could see Star Bright clearly now—the changelings had evaded me by taking to the air as well, and Star Bright with them. Two of them had hooked a foreleg each under one of his, and they were lifting him up past the floors high above. It looked as though he was struggling, which slowed them down, but if they pulled him to one of the top floors— “GIlda!” Maud barked, but the hen had already picked her target. There was a whistle as an arrow sunk into the neck of one of the changelings, and it let go of Star Bright to clutch futilely at its own throat. Another arrow whipped through the space previously occupied by the second changeling, but it was a miss—it couldn’t pull Star Bright into the air by itself, and they fell together, soon to be back amongst us on the ground floor. I didn’t see them actually land, for I was tackled myself by another changeling, but I heard a pair of wet, crunching smacks from across the room. I was more preoccupied with the fangs and the snapping teeth that leapt for my own throat, and I just barely managed to jam my sword into the jaw to force my insectoid opponent away. This was my first up-close look at one of the bugs, but I didn’t have the luxury of time with which to examine it. I saw fangs, and glassy blue eyes that seemed to have no retina; just faded blue pits of color, and the tiniest spark of fire within. There was no time for sympathy now. I shoved the bugpony back, and it sprawled, wings buzzing, as it tried to roll around onto its...hooves? If it even had those. I couldn’t let it, so I pounced on it myself, and tried to use one hoof to grab the creature’s flailing limbs and hold it steady. The other held my sword, and the moment I felt stable, I stabbed downwards with my blade. It scraped like I’d driven it against stone, and for a moment I thought I had—either it had pierced all the way through, or I’d missed entirely. But no, the changeling’s chitin was too strong to pierce with the tip of my blade. At least, not one-hooved. I brought my hoof up again as I let my sword drop, and punched the changeling as hard as I could in the cheek. There was a sharp cracking sound as the back of the bug’s head smacked against the marble floor, and that seemed to stun it for a few seconds. Those few seconds were all I had; I didn’t waste any time, and grabbed my sword again, this time with both hooves. With all the strength I could muster, I drove the tip of the blade down again. This time, I aimed for a crack in the chitin, where the plates overlapped, and allowed the creature to move. If there would ever be a weak spot in the changeling’s natural armor, it would have to be there. I managed to jam the tip under the plate, and forced my weight down on it. That got the changeling's attention, and it let out a hiss of pain and fear as it battered against me. There was no coordination to the movements, no higher brain function. It fought like a cornered animal, hissing and spitting and biting as I forced my blade further and pried the chitin plates apart with unyielding steel. Blood began to well out as the changeling screeched, and suddenly the blade slid in, all too easily, up to the hilt. Insectoid legs kicked wildly as I tugged and twisted at the grip wedged against the chitinous breastplate—both me and my opponent wanted the sword pulled from its chest, now. But as I jimmied the grip, trying to find a good angle from which to pull the weapon, the changeling’s eyes began to glow. Once more, my own eyes were drawn to those glassy blue orbs, and I found I couldn’t look away. My blue-stained hooves slackened as my mouth fell open, and those eyes seemed to pull me in as I looked at them. There was pain in those eyes. So much pain, so much loss, so much fear. This one desired only to survive; neither it nor its sisters would have struck if they had known its prey were so organized. It regretted that decision, even though it had not been the one to make it; it regretted so much it had done, and so much that had happened, even if it no longer had the words to express why. It was all out of this one’s control—it always had been, save for a brief, fleeting time long ago. And now that it remembered only the hunt, and the heart-bleeding of prey, it would never have that control ever— A massive stone club swung between us, mere hairs from my muzzle, and the floor shook as blood splattered across my hooves. In an instant, the spell was broken, and I sucked in air greedily as I flinched back. Between my hooves, the dead bug’s body spasmed and twitched. With the head now reduced to a blue-stained, crumpled pile of chitin, the body was dying, and soon stilled. I felt it die. Not just in my hooves, but in my mind as well. The creature was confused, and that was the last thing it felt before the body went cold before me. Deep within its chest, there was still an ember, and I instinctively grasped for it, and tried to protect it, pull it into my own breast. The poor little creature was hurt, alone, and afraid, and that felt so wrong to me that I couldn’t bear it. I was smearing my bloody hooves across the dead changeling’s chitinous torso. The feeling of self slammed back into me, and I recoiled again, as my hooves shook. This time, I fell away from the corpse entirely, and my hind hooves kicked in a panic, pushing it away, or pushing me away from it—it didn’t really matter, so long as I put some blessed air in between myself and the dead bug. Maud was there. She peered down at me from above, and my mouth spasmed as any words I wanted to say got tangled in my throat. What just happened? What had Maud done? What had I done? Why did I feel so utterly awful? “Holly. Say something.” I flapped my jaw at her for a moment, and she narrowed her eyes as she tightened her grip on her club. “Holly…” “H-help…” I managed to whimper. It was all I could say, to stop Maud from smashing my undead body into paste as well. Thankfully, it was enough. She relaxed, then looked away. “She’s not Hollow. It almost drained her, but I killed it in time.” “Greaaaat,” Gilda groaned, from elsewhere in the room. “Star Bright’s taken care of, too—let’s see him do that ruttin’ neurotic counting without a throat. Now help me find that decoy, she’s hiding somewhere in here.” Star Bright was…? I forced my hooves underneath myself, and pulled my body up into a sitting position, before I looked down. While my armor was painted blue, it had begun to seep through the joints and soak my fur underneath. I was coated in changeling blood, from both of Maud’s kills and from my own struggles with my lone assailant, and I’d have to strip all of the armor off and clean it, once we were safe. But I’d never be able to scrub the blue blood from my hooves. It took a few seconds to find Star Bright, or...what remained of the older stallion. His old bones clearly hadn’t survived the fall from the third, maybe fourth, story—both his forelegs had been shattered up to the shoulder, and black blood ebbed from a nasty head wound, where his forehead had slammed against the marble. Between that, and the mess Gilda had made of his throat, it was clear we had lost another member of our search team. It took me a few moments to realize I didn’t feel nearly as bad about that as I probably should have. We’d lost a pony—another life snuffed out, or at least turned Hollow, eventually. Star Bright had been useful, even if I had to tune him out for the most part. But I found it hard to care that he was dead, aside from the cold assessment that we lost a set of hooves. Was I becoming numb to death? I’d seen—and experienced—quite a lot of it now. I’d seen lots of ponies die, whether they were going to turn Hollow or not. I’d walked through two cities of the uncountable dead now. At some point, the deaths stopped meaning as much to me in the abstract sense—what was another dead pony, by this point? Just another enemy to fight, later? I forced my thoughts back to Zecora. I cared about her death still, and the speculative thought of Dinky, Pinkie or Maud dying repulsed me. But that was because I was attached to all of them; I considered them both friends, which I never had with Star Bright...or Merry May, for that matter. The thought that death mattered little to me, unless it was somepony I personally cared about, disgusted me more than all of the dead bodies that lay around me. I looked down at my blood-stained hooves again, and realized I even cared more for the changeling that Maud had killed, right in front of me, than I cared about Star Bright. For just a moment, something had connected our minds, even if it was the changeling’s own attempt to kill me. “Ah-ha!” Gilda crowed in satisfaction, and interrupted my thoughts. She flipped over a wooden desk, and grabbed the mare hiding underneath by the throat before she could bolt. Gilda spread her wings for balance, as she leaned back on her hinds, and her other fore-claw reached for a knife on her belt. The blade was already stained black with ichor—Hollow blood, and she made sure the pony saw it as Gilda held her high, in a single claw. “Quit squirming, before I gut you!” The pony whimpered, but let her hooves drop in defeat. Maud gave Gilda a hard look, but didn’t rebuke her as she approached. She focused on the captured mare, and silently inspected her for several moments. Eventually, she spoke. “It’s a decent attempt. You got her mane wrong, and her cutie mark has five stars, not six. You’ve seen her personally, haven’t you?” The mare swallowed, before she responded, in a scratchy voice, “Knew...Ken Ti’lit. Before. Long...long ago...” Maud’s eyes flicked to GIlda. “Loosen your grip, she can’t breathe.” “Bullscat, they have gills.” “Spiracles. And not while transformed.” Gilda huffed through her beak, but did as Maud asked. The knight set her blood-stained stone club on the floor, before she looked back up at the mare being held by the throat before her. “I knew Twilight too. Back in Ponyville.” “P-Pony-ville...yesss…” Even without being half-strangled by Gilda, the mare’s speech was subtly wrong, in a dozen different ways. She emphasized the hisses and glottal noises of the worlds, and she seemed to have trouble using her own lips, as she stumbled over P’s and W’s. She paused often, as if it took effort to speak, to even remember how the words worked. “I rem-remember P-Pony-ville. You...there...” Maud’s face betrayed no emotion. “What do you mean?” “Taught...classs...I learn...rocks, cryssstals.” Gilda snorted at that. “You’re a teacher?” “A few times. Long before the sun stopped.” Maud stepped closer, and looked into the panicked eyes of the mare. “I remember Changelings in my class. I remember their names. What’s yours?” The mare was a changeling? They could talk, they could think? As Gilda sputtered in surprise, I glanced back at the cold pile of bloody chitin a few leg-lengths away, and wanted to vomit. But that one had been feral, Hollowed. Hadn’t it? The emotions I felt as it died washed through me again, and guilt followed soon after as I looked around at the blue smears of the dead, all around us. The mare—or changeling—seemed to have great difficulty answering this question, most of all. She screwed up her eyes, and her hooves twitched as she clenched her teeth. I saw Gilda shift nervously, and she held the knife a little closer, but a firm look from Maud had her lower the bloody blade. After a long few moments where the changeling wracked her mind, she eventually was only able to whimper. “Name...can’t...wrong in p-pony tongue. I called...Och’alis, by sisters…” Maud turned fully back to Gilda. “Drop her.” “What?” Gilda did a double-take at the order, but she didn’t loosen her grip. “I said drop her. She won’t run. I know her.” Gilda shook her head again. “Wait, wait, hold up, you were serious, before? You’ve taught changelings? In a classroom? On purpose?” “They can be students as well. They’re very passionate about geology, but they don’t know our words for the stones.” Maud tilted her head slightly. “I thought the news of the peace accords would have reached Gryphonstone a long time ago.” “They did, and we didn’t believe them, because they were clearly changeling propaganda written to make us drop our guard! Didn’t stop any of the local hives from replacing gryphons, I can tell you that!” The mare in GIlda’s claw shuddered again. “Hives b-beyond...do not b-believe either. That Kris’alis, ken a kens...that she could b-be defeated...humiliated…” “‘Ken a kens’?” Gilda repeated. “I got ‘Chrysalis,’ but what in Tartarus—” “Queen of Queens,” Maud explained. “A very old changeling honorific, and it only applies to Chrysalis.” Gilda shook her head. “Of course you speak bug. Fine. Rut it. I’m gonna drop her, and if she goes for your throat, bug-lover, I’ll wait until she’s finished to squish her.” “She won’t,” Maud stated. “I trust you, Ocellus.” Gilda released her grip, and the purple pony slumped to the floor. After a moment, green fire washed across her body, and where a pony had sat moments before, there was now only an emaciated changeling. She was gaunt, covered in scratches that marred the smooth surface of her black chitin, but she looked just a little better than the others had. There were a couple of dead, but mostly-intact changelings lying around us, and I took the time to examine them and the one called “Ocellus” in detail. Their wings and legs were riddled with pockmarked holes, either battle damage or decay, and that seemed to be totally absent on her. Instead, she was just thin, as though she were half-starved. What was more, I could feel her from here—she had fire in her, like a pony. It was faint, but it was there, and though the flame wavered, it wasn’t the weak ember the others had. She slowly turned her head to look at the dead changelings around her as well. Eventually, she lowered her head, and her voice wavered. “Sssorry...so...sorry. Too m-many dead, changeling and p-pony. Keep...keep coming here...look for Ti’lit. F-find...find me, instead. Then...changelings f-find them.” “You’re the bait for their trap,” Gilda growled. Ocellus shuddered, and closed her eyes as she hugged her hooves around herself tightly. “Don’t want...never want. Try to...hide f-from sisters. Come here alone, b-but...always watching.” “Then why do you keep coming back here, huh? If you don’t want to be bait, then why keep coming back to the trap?” Gilda seemed to have made a point of not stowing her knife away just yet, ready to use it again at a moment’s notice. Maud slowly approached again, and placed a hoof on Ocellus’ shoulder. After a moment, the changeling started to gently rub her head against the hoof, like an animal. “You said they’re looking for Twilight. Why do you keep disguising yourself as her?” Ocellus shuddered again, and she sucked at her fangs as though the question caused her physical pain. Slowly, she looked down, and picked up a book, one that had fallen to the floor it’d been knocked off a shelf in the fight. “M-much gone. Can’t rem-remember all. Was slipping away...like heart-b-bleed, but...in head, and slow.” The changeling opened the book to a random page, and her head twitched as she read the page. As she did, that green fire washed over her again, in a slow inferno across her chitin. She barely seemed to notice , she was so engrossed in the book. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be real fire, as it left both Maud’s hoof and the book in Ocellus’ hooves unharmed. When the fire faded, the purple pony was sitting in front of us once again. She closed the book, and whinnied quietly. “Reading...helps. I remember...some. B-better than none. Try to b-be...more p-pony, less changeling. Remember...Ti’lit. She...was b-better pony than me, b-before. Teacher. F-friend. Take her f-form...try to remember more. Always b-bleeding. But...bleed slower, when trying to...b-be her.” Gilda retched. “Of course! Why should I even be surprised? Even changelings got infected by weak pony morality after long enough.” Ocellus shook her head. “No! Not...inf-fected. Co...co…” She paused, as she tried to remember the word, but after a few moments, she seemed to give up. “Changelings…p-ponies call p-parasites. Creatures suck blood...suck heart-soul from host. Tried...tried to b-be different, without ken a kens...give back to p-ponies. Still need to...f-feed to survive, b-but...give back for p-payment, for take.” The book she held gently slipped from her hooves, and landed with a thump on the floor, as the mare sobbed quietly. “P-ponies gone...twisted...wrong. No heart-soul to...take. Without host…” Ocellus swallowed sadly. “With...without host, p-parasite die. St-starve.” Gilda looked like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself, twice over. As I looked at her fighting some insult back, I couldn’t help but hear that singing from outside again. It had faded when the battle started, and then I thought it had just been the wind. But that lonely song, like that of the Gravewardens, was still weaving through the broken windows of the library, and still echoed through the streets of the city all around us. Eventually, Gilda kicked at a burned book, and sent it fluttering across the floor. “Ruttin’ hate this. Always shades of gray with ruttin’ ponies. There can’t be a good, simple fight any more. No, always gotta care about each other’s dweeby feelings and junk. Eugh!” Maud watched her carefully, and I saw her take a step back, towards her club in case Gilda chose to attack Ocellus anyways. But that was never needed; instead, Gilda padded over to me, and the dead changelings all around. “Keep talking, like I know you want to. I’m gonna check the bodies for anything useful, grab my arrows. When we go back to hunting and killing things, and not talking about our rutting feelings, you let me know.” She did pause next to me, and I saw that flash of sympathy once more, before she reached down and grabbed my leg, then pulled me to my hooves. I stood there, shakily, for a few moments, as Gilda continued to check the other bodies. When I felt able to stand, I started to limp over to Maud, who asked Ocellus, “Are there any more changelings?” The disguised changeling shook her head, as she looked at me...and all the changeling blood that I was soaked in. “Attack as sw-swarm. Weak alone. Need...numbers. No m-more, in building.” “What about elsewhere?” Maud asked bluntly. Ocellus looked between us again, hesitant to answer. She must’ve thought we’d go and kill them all, and maybe she was right to be afraid of that. “M-more elsewhere. Hidden. But...separated. Will n-not attack. B-Banshee outside, kill them.” “B-Banshee?” I repeated, quietly. Was that the source of the singing? I’d heard of banshees before, but only as folk tales. They were mournful wailing ghosts, that heralded the death of a family member, though...I couldn’t remember if they were just an ill omen, or if they did the killing themselves. Ocellus nodded. “Sp-spirit, outside. Deadly, v-very deadly. Cannot be touched, f-fought...many sisters try. All die.” Gilda looked up, from across the room. “Tartarus. Can it get in here? Should we be getting ready to move?” Slowly, Ocellus shook her head, though I noticed she was looking at the windows. “Library...safe. Had l-lucid moment, long ago. W-warded building...all walls...all entrances. Cannot enter. But only this b-building, and...entrance to hive. To protect.” Both Maud and Gilda relaxed at that, and the hen slid her bow back over a shoulder, content it wouldn’t be needed. “Good. So it can’t get in here to fight us, and as long as it’s out there, we don’t have to worry about changelings coming in?” Ocellus shrugged. “N-not sure how long...B-banshee stay. Not f-first time...it hear f-fighting here. Waiting for p-prey. She louder lately...stay l-longer.” Maud sat down, beside Ocellus, and the disguised changeling leaned up against her again. I felt a little strange about standing there, coated in the cooling blood of her...sisters? But at the same time, it didn’t seem like there was much to be done. I righted an old wooden bench, and sat down on that while we talked to Ocellus. Now that Maud knew we were safe, she didn’t waste any time in regards to our mission. “Ocellus. Do you remember Trixie Lulamoon?” The disguised changeling frowned as she thought, then her eyes widened a moment later. “Ti’see, she...teacher? At...school? Unicorn?” “Guidance counselor. Yes.” Ocellus nodded eagerly, then slowed down, and her eyes fell. “Came here...l-looking for Ti’lit. Attacked. B-but remembered her...stop sisters. Not kill. Only...capture.” Ocellus sighed. “Cocoon in Hive. Asleep, for slow f-feeding.” So...Trixie had come here, and the Changelings had captured her, then taken her back to her hive. That made our job considerably harder. Maud was silent for a few moments, as she thought about that as well. Then she looked back up to ask, “Did Trixie have a necklace on her? She was supposed to have one, and we need them both.” Surprisingly, Ocellus actually shuddered at the mention of it. “Cursed jewelry. Like heart-soul...but missing. Hungers, like Changelings. No sister wanted to touch...thought it would make crazy. Like Ti’see. Still wears it...in cocoon.” “Can you bring her here? From the hive?” Maud asked. Ocellus shuddered again at the suggestion. “Sisters stop. Maybe kill...for steal food. Sisters st-starve already.” “Pl-please.” I murmured, just loud enough that both Maud and Ocellus looked at me. “We just need Tr-Trixie. She’s imp-portant, for Equestria. The Pr-Princess sent us.” “Ken Ti’lit?” Ocellus asked, with fragile hope in her voice. It hurt that I had to shatter that hope. “No. Pr-Princess Celestia. N-nopony knows where T-Twilight is. W-we thought she might be here...like everyp-pony else.” Ocellus slumped, silent, and the only noise in the library for a few moments was the sound of Gilda flapping her wings to reach her arrows, still stuck in the walls. I took the time to look again at my hooves, and the drying blood that stained them. After a moment, I looked up, and noticed Ocellus had been staring at my hooves too. I tried to hide them, as best I could. “I’m s-sorry. For killing your s-sisters.” Ocellus swallowed, and a quiet sob escaped her as she spoke. “F-fought. Survived. Can...cannot blame for survive. Other p-pony...didn’t.” “We didn’t come here to kill anyone. We came to talk to Trixie, and bring her back to Ponyville.” Maud explained. “That necklace she has is one of the Elements of Harmony. It’s very important that we retrieve both of them.” Again, Ocellus was silent for a long while. Gilda continued to move around the library, and started to drag the corpses around into the open, so they could be more easily picked over. The changelings didn’t have anything, of course, but Gilda seemed content in knowing for sure that each one was dead. She spent a bit longer picking through Star Bright’s saddlebags, and she stripped his armor off to leave him just as bare as the others. She seemed to be trying to finagle some of the looser plates into armor around her own body, since she was unable to wear the pony-sized armor entirely. Neither Maud nor I moved to stop her, since Star Bright wouldn’t need it any more. Especially not when he woke up later, Hollowed and hungry. Gilda paused midway through, before she reached down and picked up something—Star Bright’s discarded revolver. She held it with clear distaste, before she flicked open the cylinder and counted the ammunition inside. Then she checked his corpse again, and made an avian sound of annoyance. “W-what’s wrong?” I asked, curious what she’d discovered. “This idiot—all that counting he was doing, and he doesn’t have any spare ammo on him. Did he forget to grab more, or what? There’s only three bullets for this damned gun, and I don’t feel like going scrounging for ammo in this city.” Well...that wasn’t much use at all, then. “St-still,” I started to say. “We should k-keep it in case we f-find more, or we need—” I was suddenly cut off as Gilda pointed the revolver at the ceiling, and squeezed off the last three shots in quick succession. The deafening sound of the gunshots echoed through the library, and for a moment, it blocked out the singing from outside. But only for a moment. With all the ammo now depleted, Gilda carelessly lobbed the empty gun into a corner, and clearly cared little for where it landed.  After a moment, she noticed we were all staring at her in confusion. She rolled her eyes, then explained. “I’m not going to use a gun with only three shots, and the rest of you physically can’t. But changelings might be able to steal it off us and use those last three rounds against us. I’m being ‘proactive,’ ya get me?” Nopony said anything, and eventually GIlda just growled again, before she started to pull the rest of Star Bright’s armor onto her shoulders. “One p-pony,” Ocellus murmured, eventually. “Can sp-spare one. Lost m-many sisters...hive less hungry...but...how many? Until hive...until changelings...w-wiped out?” “Yeah, what a tragedy,” We heard Gilda mutter across the room. Both me and Maud glared at her, but she neither noticed nor cared. Ocellus didn’t seem to notice either. She was too lost in thought, and her eyes were closed. “Sisters...f-fight me. Will not allow entry. Need kill...m-more, to get Ti’see.” “C-can’t you reason with them?” I murmured, hopefully. But Ocellus shook her head again. “An-animals. No words...Not like me. Only...almost only one left...can think. Can speak.” Ocellus’ eyes flicked open, but she didn’t look up from the floor. “Will do...what can. Keep most away...but some hunt anyway.” “Then that will have to do,” Maud decided, quietly. “Can you take us there now?” Again, Ocellus shook her head, and she looked back up at the broken windows, where that haunting song still echoed through the building. “N-no. Banshee outside...hunting. Will kill all. Need slay Banshee...then get Ti’see.” “What?” Gilda asked, as she walked back towards us, with metal plates hap-hazardly wrapped around her shoulders and throat. “How the hay do you kill a ghost? You’re joking, right?” “No!” Ocellus cried, as she suddenly stood up, and began rummaging through the piles of fallen literature and papers freed from their books. “Here...lost...pamphlet, about museum. Knife, displayed. Saw before, when p-ponies lived...felt cursed b-blade. Like cursed j-jewelry.” “And th-that will kill the B-banshee?” I asked. When Ocellus nodded, Maud looked at Gilda. “Find a pamphlet for the museum. Check the lobby.” “Yeah, yeah. What else, I wonder…” I looked back at Ocellus. “W-what is the Banshee? The s-song is familiar…” The disguised changeling shuddered. “Pony...before. Was captured when happened...but ponies above changed. Lived. Breathed. Then...not. Ghosts, now. Cannot fight, but...can kill. Killed many sisters. Always...singing.” Was that what had happened to Baltimare? Something, or somepony...had changed them? I thought back to the silhouettes we’d been seeing outside, and wondered if those had been the citizens of Baltimare all along, stalking us in ghostly forms. But Baltimare was a big city...and we’d only seen a few silhouettes, until the last few blocks. We should’ve seen more, so many more. I shook my head to clear my mind. It didn’t make any sense, but I did trust poor Ocellus. “So...g-get the knife, k-kill the banshee, then we s-save Trixie?” Ocellus and Maud nodded, and as Gilda approached, holding a faded pamphlet in her claw, I steadied myself. Baltimare was a city of mysteries—a city of the dead. But at least we had a plan now.