“They were caught!?”
The Queen was fed up with how the actions of her children deeply disappointed her, here she was expecting them all to come back successfully with the child in tow. But no, instead she had to have one of her more inexperienced infiltrators sent out to see what had happened. The news that they gave her made the disappointment turn into anger. An anger that even the weakest of nymphs could sense reverberating across the hive, the messenger themself found it difficult to stay afoot and promptly collapsed on the hive floor. Prompting the two personal guards she had stationed one either side of her throne to scoff, although quietly as to not invoke the Queen's wrath.
“Y-yes my Queen..”
“How in Faust’s name did my most experienced group of infiltrators get caught.. Explain it to me?”
“W-well.. I-the child was relocated to Cloudsdale an-”
Before they were promptly interrupted by the Queen expressing her own thoughts, falling back in her throne and letting a hoof fall over her face. Giving the rather lanky infiltrator a forlorn look, then rolling her eyes as she knew what she had to do.
“Better yet, don’t say anything.. Just.. prepare yourself. You’re coming with me”
“I don’t understa-”
“Imbecile! You’re coming with me, I’m going to be there to make sure that the child is caught!”
That was all the explanation that the changeling needed, swiftly nodding their head before moving back into a preferred standing position. He tried not to make light of his internal conflict on the situation and just turned to step out of the throne room, leaving the Queen alone to confer with herself. Having to reconfigure her plan that was also reconfigured from her recently banished younger sister’s, how disappointed was she when they failed to take over Canterlot. She shook her head before moving onto the topic of how she would do this.
“Well.. if you want something done right, you do it yourself.”
-----
“So.. tell me again how these clouds have the ability to keep us on top of them?”
That was the first question that came to my head as I addressed the Captain of the Wonderbolts, seeing as the both of us were now sitting on her porch overlooking a very expansive cloud city. Not like star wars, where they had a whole foundation made out of thruster filled metallic beams but full of clouds carrying a bunch of structures that also looked to be made of clouds.
Wait, why was I relating this to star wars? This is so much more related to terraria and those floating islands with the water always seeming to flow out and down, but I haven’t seen that giant white dragon that always seemed to move faster than my alien spaceship and-
I’m going off topic, it was time to see what Spitfires response would be to my question, if my attention had been already taken away by that small bout of video game references.
“Err.. uh, magic.”
Somehow I knew she would say exactly that, so I did what exactly anyone would do in my position if they were given such a useless answer to a question that you have no idea the answer to. I slowly turned my head and squinted at her, leaving her to lightly rub the back of her head with a hoof and chuckle.
“Of course..”
I just shook my head and turned my head to look back at the cloud city.
“So.. this whole cloud cit-”
“Cloudsdale.”
“Cloudsdale, is built on top of a cloud and is kept there by magic?”
“Yep, just like the magic that lets us fly and lets us stand on clouds!”
‘That’s such a bullshit reason..’
“Seems legit.”
It then went silent for a few more moments, which gave me the time to finally realize something. I’ve completely changed locations of living and haven’t questioned nor even tried to reason with myself on how exactly I was so nonchalant about all of this, I mean there still was the possibility that there were changelings. Not that fitting of a name for something that is trying to be the changelings that live in those holes and eat children, at least they eat love or something like that. However that is possible, I am not going to question nor try to confuse myself anymore. I will now proceed to act like nothing else happens and try to live things as normally as I can.
“I’ve noticed something about you squirt.”
She brought me out of another internal monologue and or contemplation on what is and was my life until this point.
“I would try and make some sort of joke but... I’m too interested in you noticing something to try.”
She looked taken back for a few moments before fixing herself and scoffing, I grinned cheekily all the while.
“Pfft- okay rookie! Throwing shots at the Captain of the Wonderbolts?”
“Yes.”
Best to be blunt instead of egging her on, but on the other hand.
“Anyways, before we start another chase scene tell me what you were going to say.”
“Well… before somepony decided to be a little jokester!”
I simply turned my head to the side as she started, now letting the past casualness turn into slight marvel as I really took a moment to realize where I was.
"You al..hen...."
What sounded like she had a seizure then transitioned into a loud thudding noise at my side, I jumped and looked over to Spitfire. I half expected her to seize up or rather just pass through a fit of narcolepsy, but when my eyes met green I gaped. Rather I gaped and jumped up onto my hooves, only to then collide with something standing directly behind me.
"What th-- oh shit!"
I did one eighty and backed away from a looming changeling, standing at a rather larger stature than the other ones I have seen with the bright red slitted eyes. I also took the time to notice that this particular one wore a crown and had long slightly ragged hair that hung around her shoulders, if you could call it that. I took a step back and she took a step forward, I snapped my head backwards and saw that the other changeling was currently dragging the slumped over body of Spitfire back into her own house. I immediately attempted to take action, regretting it a few seconds later.
“Hey! Let go o- wait, let go of me!”
The moment I went to charge forwards I was caught in the firm grasp of the tall changeling, squirming around in a fit of struggling as she simply giggled deeply. Now the changeling's voice I confronted earlier was slightly jarring, even slightly creepy. But this big deep voiced woman one was.. Something else, it helped further my attempts of escape as her grip faltered and I fell forwards onto my face, the hard wood porch sent a wave of pain through my chin.
Nonetheless I didn’t let that stop me and started using my front hooves to crawl forwards, wildly bucking my legs at the changeling trying to get her grip back onto me. Bringing a slight feeling of satisfaction as she grunted and completely let go of my back legs, letting me fully drop onto the floor and crawl forwards.
“Insolent child!”
I was up on my feet and about to sprint when a heavy force was dropped onto my back, a loud grunt of pain being unintentionally released out of my mouth. I tried lifting my body up to go against the weight on my back but was promptly denied by the draft of air and the impacting of her hoof on my back once more. It hurt a lot more the second time than it did the first, apparently this bug thing was ten times stronger than her little changeling friends. I found myself with the air completely knocked out of me, the sneering voice of the changeling did nothing to help the matter.
“Urk!-”
“Calm your struggles foal! You brought this upon yourself, if you know what is good for your being then you would cease..”
“L-like hell I would..Stop!”
But I would persist, I wasn’t about to let myself fall to the attempted kidnapping or even love sucking pyramid scheme these changelings were trying to wrangle me into. As soon as I let out those fateful words I felt the surrounding areas temperature drop a marginally degree lower, which was new. Though everything else was the same, the sudden gray scale and the weight on my back seemingly ceasing. I rolled out from underneath her hold and looked at the frozen changeling still staring at where I once was, taking a moment to catch my breath and take in the situation I was currently going through.
New changeling figure showed up along with another seemingly lower class one and together they knocked out Spitfire. Which put me at an immediate disadvantage as I was only a simple human inside of a literal child’s body with the fickle ability to seemingly slow down or even stop time in it of itself. Even looking back at what I just said lead me to believe I was completely going through a fantasy situation, but I couldn’t sit here forever and just nag on my current situation. This was life or death, or something along those lines. These bugs have proven not being above hurting a child to get what they want, no less completely taking out a fully grown adult to do it. Though now that my attention has been brought to Spitfire, I felt guilty.
“Why can’t I just live a normal life? Honestly!” I echoed to myself.
‘Whatever, let's just skip the depressing realization and try to figure out how the hell I was going to slip out of this tight situation. Now there was the thought of going back into the house and grabbing a knife and just taking out both changelings in one go.. But I’m not sure I’d be ready to actually physically kill two sentient beings no matter how evil or nefarious. Despite the evil eye the tall changeling was giving me, I could feel as if my time was limited an-
“Wait. Did her eyes move?”
Indeed they did, the bright red slits were slowly inching their way over to where I was standing. I could also see the after image of her head turning along with her gaze, I was confused and slightly fearful.
“What the hell how is sh-agh!”
I couldn’t find myself willing to finish my own sentence, being distracted by the full on stabbing feeling at my chest. I stopped in my tracks and curled inwards, my mind was filled with the sensory overload of something akin to being shot in the chest. There was a brief pause and I lifted my head, confusion being the main feeling that clouded my already exhausted mind. What exactly happe- and down I go.
I slumped onto the floor with a loud thud and found myself unable to move any part of my body, a sort of paralysis taking over the current working process of my muscles and nerves rendered me a limp ball of fur. A limp ball of fur who was currently looking around wide eyed as he was trapped in his own useless body, feeling his already faint heartbeat increase as the greyscale started gaining color. The environment slowly faded out of black and white and regained their color schemes, with that came the sudden influx of noise as the ambient noises that were once muted now started flowing through the barrier of silence. My attempt at moving increased ten fold as in the corner of my eyes I could see the changeling slowly start gaining their paused inert force of movement, before suddenly they were moving normally as if nothing happened.
Her angered facial expression shifted to a slight air of confusion as she glanced around, her eyes finally meeting my form just a mere few inches away where she originally had me. She grinned and I cringed, brain running hundreds of miles per hour as the rush of endorphins and adrenaline flooded my system. Proving to be completely useless as I could still move nothing of my own body, she took one step forward before she was standing right in front of me. Bending her head down she stared at me in the eyes, a grin filled with sharp fangs.
‘Ah fuc-’
“Well then.. Where were we?”