When I woke up, all four ponies were still there, but the room was somehow different. It took me a moment to realize why: somepony had moved me onto the couch on the opposite end of the room from where I’d slammed into a wall. That wasn’t the only change: the ponies were holding themselves deflated, the ice-hot rage of Braeburn and sheriff’s love auras had dissolved, and I felt kind of… warmer… than before, though not with love.
I tried to raise my head, and the world started spinning painfully.
“Oooooowwwwwww…” I moaned, collapsing back into my starting position.
“Easy there, buddy,” Sentinel said, rushing closer to me. “Told you it was a bad idea!”
“Wwwhhhhh...hhhat… happ...ppppenned?” I went to rub my temple, but froze in place momentarily when a muffled clank sounded from somewhere unusually close. “Huh?”
Sentinel bit her lip and looked uncomfortably at the others.
By then, my head had somewhat loosened up with the threatening to explode, and I dared to try looking around me again. The first thing I noticed was that somepony had covered me with a blanket - that explained the warmth - and when I uncovered myself, the clank sounded again, more clearly this time, and I saw what had made the sound.
Cuffs. They’d chained me up while I was unconscious! And with my luck, the cuffs would have been magicked to blast me if I tried to shapeshift out of them! Maybe they weren’t, but I was done with experimenting for the foreseeable future.
I let my foreleg drop onto the couch and gazed despondently at the chains.
“Ahem,” the sheriff said. “My apologies for that, Thorax, but it was for my own sense of safety. If it’s any consolation, your friends tried to stop me.”
“He wasn’t having it,” Sentinel said. “But at least I managed to stop him from dragging you to jail right away with the whole town watching.”
I became aware of a couple of arrows sticking out of the doorframe.
“How long have I been out?”
“A little over an hour,” Sentinel sighed.
“Ah used that time to tell ‘em more ‘bout ya,” Applejack said. “Calmed ‘em down a bit, but Sheriff says he ain’t lettin’ ya go ‘til he hears it from y’all directly.”
I tried to sit up. The room was still spinning, but not as much as before. The blanket slid off me and I saw bandages wrapped around my trunk.
“What’s this?”
“Your carapace cracked when you hit the wall,” Braeburn said. “The wall cracked, too.”
“It did? I’m sorry,” I said, looking at the wall. Sure, there was a crack in one of the planks that made up the wall. Or were they called boards? Panels? Something else? Either way, my back hurt, and judging by what the wall looked like, it had every reason to after this much time. But if the wall was in that condition, what did my back look like? Did I even want to know?
“Not yer fault,” Applejack growled, looking daggers at her cousin.
“Will you expect me to fix it?” I asked him. “I can try, but I’m afraid I don’t have much experience-”
“Nothin’ doin’, Thorax! Braeburn can fix ‘is own house!”
“Right,” he said. “Where were we?”
“I think we were going to hear Thorax’s version of events,” the sheriff reminded him.
I obeyed. I started my tale with my reasons to leave the hive, moved on to my encounter with the buffalo and the banishment from their territory, then recounted the incident in the orchard: how I’d been left there, how I’d rushed up a tree upon hearing Braeburn’s voice, how I’d disguised myself randomly when he started to look up, how I’d failed to come up with a credible explanation for my presence before he’d accused me of stealing apples, how much I’d wished I could tell him the truth… I finished by explaining how and why I’d escaped from jail, the ‘why’ part having become obvious by this point if they’d bothered to listen at all, but I felt it had to be verbalized regardless.
“So what happened after that?” Braeburn asked. “I mean, how did you end up in the Crystal Empire of all places?”
“By pure chance. I passed through a good part of Equestria, but something always happened to force me to leave and keep looking further. I didn’t even know that the Crystal Empire existed, but when I sensed an unbelievably strong source of love, I followed it blindly, assuming there had to be something there. Imagine my surprise when I found Princess Cadance and Shining Armor and their newborn foal!”
“And it didn’t occur to you that you’d get fried if they see you?”
“It did! That and being hungry were the only two things I could think about! But by then I was too weak to leave, so… I stayed.”
“And got noticed,” Sentinel added. “Undisguised.”
“Yeah, that too. Good thing I found that cave to hide in while you were looking for me.”
“Good thing Spike found you first!”
“Spike?” the sheriff interjected. “That little dragon?”
“Yes,” Sentinel and I said in unison.
“An’ he went outta ‘is way to befriend Thorax an’ to get the ponies to stop tryin’ to kill ‘im,” Applejack added.
“Though there’s still plenty of work to be done to convince Shining Armor,” Sentinel muttered.
“Okay, that’s all great,” Braeburn asked, “but why couldn’t you have tried the same thing here after we caught you?”
“Because I was already in jail by then, or on my way to jail at the very least, and it didn’t look like you were going to treat a changeling any better than you were already treating a confused pony who may or may not have been a thief. Also, it was still my first day in Equestria. I still hoped things would turn out better if I tried again elsewhere. I still thought I might find a friend who wouldn’t be afraid of me.”
“You met Little Strongheart. Doesn’t she fit the description?”
As if on cue, there was a knock at the door, and before Braeburn had the time to ask the visitor to drop by later, the door opened and none other than Little Strongheart trotted in.
“Hi, Braeburn,” she said. “I was wondering if- What’s going on?” She looked around the room. “Thorax?! What are you doing here? And why are you in chains?”
“Long story,” I shrugged. Or maybe it wasn’t. How much did she know?
“He’s that guy who tried to steal my apples,” Braeburn told her.
“I thought it might have been you,” she nodded. “But that was ages ago! Why-”
“Hold on, you thought it was him?! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because the only proof I had was that the location and timing were suggestive! And he didn’t strike me as a type to steal stuff, not that I knew him long enough to be sure! But from what I did see of him, he seemed like a decent enough guy, so why make things harder for him by telling you I’d met a changeling and triggering mass panic in the whole village that might have spread throughout Equestria in no time? It was bad enough that my father banished him from our territory!”
“Y’all took pity on ‘im,” Applejack summed it up.
“Sort of. Besides, I’d never met a changeling before and didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to make the same mistake we all made with this orchard.”
“If only more people would bother to think before acting on their impulses…” Sentinel muttered.
“But what are you still doing here?” Little Strongheart asked me. “I thought you would have gone away long ago!”
“I did. I live in the Crystal Empire now. But I came back to sort out the apple theft charges. I felt like I owed it to Braeburn all along, but didn’t dare to come back sooner lest I get thrown in prison without anypony bothering to listen to what I had to say.”
“I take it somepony listened? Somepony in the Crystal Empire?”
“Yes. Spike did, in one of his visits there. I understand you’ve met him?”
“I did. He’s a good guy.”
“He’s more than good! He convinced Princesses Cadance and Twilight that they didn’t have to fear me! I have him to thank for the home and the friends I have today!”
“Yes, you did say you were looking for friends when I first met you. I’m glad that worked out, even if you had to look further than my village!”
“You might be the only one. I don’t seem to be very liked in this part of the world,” I sighed. “Not that I didn’t anticipate the possibility of getting arrested again.”
“It must have taken a lot of courage to try! I’m not sure if I could have done it!”
“I don’t know if I’d call it courage. More like… a sense of duty and a desire to do the right thing, sort of. And a lot of freaking out!”
Sentinel burst into laughter. “Freaking out is an understatement! But Little Strongheart is right, Thorax: it takes a brave heart to do what you did today, even if you freak out in the process.”
“Thanks, everyone. I wish I could hug you and stay with you!” I sighed and looked at my chains. “Do you think they’ll at least allow me to send you letters from prison?”
“About that,” Sentinel spoke. “Sheriff, aren’t you convinced yet that we can drop the charges for apple theft?”
“I am.”
“So why is Thorax still chained up?”
“Aren’t changelings supposed to be sent to prison when caught?”
She facehoofed. “Don’t you know the law? Sheriff, there’s no part of Equestrian law that says changelings have to be put in prison simply because they happen to be in Equestria! It’s just that by the time they’re found, they all have already done something that’s grounds for prison sentence, such as assaulting ponies! Thorax didn’t do any such thing! Why would you send him to prison if he’s innocent?”
“But, Sentinel-”
“Shut up, Thorax, I know what you’re going to say, and no, you were found not guilty for it, and you’ve punished yourself for it regardless! There is nothing in Equestrian law that would justify sending you to prison!”
“Wait a minute... Are you saying… the sheriff can let me go?!”
“Obviously!”
The sheriff stared at us for another moment, as if unsure what had just happened. It was a very long and nervous moment for me; I was sure he’d object to Sentinel’s words, or try to think of something else he could charge me with, anything to put me in prison for… I might have still gotten my hopes up too soon!
But in the end, he simply shrugged and fumbled with his vest.
“Okay, where did I put that key now?” he mused. “Oh, there it is!”
He approached me and unlocked the cuffs, mumbling something about how he’d never thought he’d set a changeling free.
“Thanks,” I said. “Is there anything else that needs to be done?”
“I’ll have some paperwork to do, but nothing any of you need to worry about. You can even leave for the Crystal Empire if you want!” With that, he went out the door, presumably back to his duties.
“When does the train leave?”
Braeburn consulted the clock. “In about half an hour, why? You’re not leaving already, are you?”
“I’m sorry, I wish I didn’t have to, but Shining Armor insisted that I should return at the first opportunity unless I got sent to prison, which means no lingering or undertaking side-trips, to quote his exact words. Like Sentinel said, he still doesn’t trust me, and I don’t want to tempt fate with him, or he will find some excuse to send me to prison now that Sheriff Silverstar decided against it! But I do wish I could stay a little longer!”
“If we miss this train, when does the next one leave?” Sentinel asked.
“Tomorrow.”
“An’ Ah hate to chase y’all away, but it might be best if y’all don’t wait that long. Knowin’ Silverstar, he ain’t gonna close this case ‘til he checks with them folks in the Crystal Empire if y’all are tellin’ the truth, an’ then Shinin’ will know y’all stayed ‘ere longer than y’all had permission to.”
“Guess we’d better hurry then,” Sentinel agreed and began taking off her armor. Applejack wrapped up the changeling-proofed chain and returned it to her.
I grabbed a piece of cloth and threw it over the arrows before plucking them from the doorframe. “Are we taking these too?”
“We’d better. It might not have been my smartest moment!”
Braeburn wrapped up some fritters in the meantime. “In case you get hungry,” he told Sentinel.
“One day, Braeburn,” she said, “I’m gonna come back here for a vacation and spend day and night gorging myself at your cottage! No apple pastry will be safe!”
I had nothing to do while waiting for Sentinel to finish dismantling her armor. I just stood there, taking in the sight of new friendships blossoming, savoring the taste of its love without actually eating it. They hadn’t explicitly given me permission to feed on them, after all!
“I take it this is your saddlebag,” Little Strongheart said, offering it to me.
“It actually belongs to a friend, but he gave it to me for the trip, so yes, in a way.”
I placed it on my back and winced.
“Is something wrong?”
“A minor injury.” Probably not really a minor one, but why burden her with it? “Nothing to worry about.”
“You want me to carry the saddlebag to the train for you?”
“Thanks, but I can manage.” I hoped I wouldn’t regret it five minutes from now! “But I won’t mind you tagging along if you want!”
“I think we’re all tagging along, at least to the train station!”
She thought right. Sentinel had finished packing her stuff by then and the three ponies were already going out the door. We were about to do the same, but Applejack blocked my path suddenly.
“Y’all goin’ through town lookin’ like that, sugarcube?” she asked, half snickering.
“What do you mean- Oh.” Goodbye Thorax, hello Crystal Hoof. “Better?”
“Perfect as zap apple pie!”
“Except that this bandage is a little uncomfortable now…”
“Can’t ya adjust yer size to fit it better? Ah don’ think anypony will notice under them saddlebags!”
I did.
“There ya go. Ah can’t see any difference mahself!”
“So that’s what shapeshifting looks like,” Little Strongheart mused as we trotted to the train station. Luckily, not many ponies were around to hear her. “And you look really convincing. I’d never guess that you weren’t really a pony just by looking at you!”
“Thanks, but that’s the whole point of the disguise, and any changeling can do it easily!”
“You think you could look like a buffalo? Not now, I mean! Theoretically speaking!”
“Yes, and a lot of other things, including inanimate objects.”
“So it’s true what my father told me…” She sighed.
I looked questions at her.
“He’s been telling me about changelings from time to time ever since you passed through our village. He said your kind used to sneak close to our settlements by pretending to be rocks or pieces of wood or some other inconspicuous thing… then, when the time was right, they would attack… or sometimes, everything would be fine and then suddenly someone would go missing around the same time as peculiar birds would show up and disappear… that kind of things. Nothing you could put your hoof on until something happens and it’s usually too late by then.”
“I can see why he wanted me out of there,” I nodded. “I hope nothing of the kind happened after we met?”
“Thankfully no, or I don’t think I would have still trusted you! At least we didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”
“If what happened in Canterlot is any indication,” Braeburn interjected, “then you most definitely would have noticed!”
“Maybe not,” I countered. “Sometimes drones get sent to simply infiltrate an area to observe what’s going on there so they can relay it to the hive. Just observation, without any combat or abductions. Any such drones might have gone undetected if they picked the right disguise.”
“I’m pretty sure there weren’t any,” she insisted. “The whole village was on edge for weeks after you paid us a visit, Thorax, and they still haven’t fully relaxed! I don’t think an ant could have walked past them unsuspected!”
“I take it he wouldn’t consider loosening up about me?” I asked her.
“No. I tried talking to him about you a few times, asking him if he thinks you might have been telling the truth. I might have been hoping to see you again one day and to get to spend some time with you, see for myself what you’re like. I got the same answer every single time: he couldn’t allow a changeling to live within our borders. The last time I tried was barely two weeks ago!”
“Yep, that’s Chief Thunderhooves for you,” Braeburn nodded. “When he decides something, that’s final in every sense of the word!”
“Except that business with yer orchard,” Applejack reminded him.
“So I’m still banished… might have figured as much,” I mused. “Still, thanks for trying, Little Strongheart!”
“Hey, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends! If you want, you can send me letters through Braeburn! Right, Braeburn?”
“Can’t I get any letters?” He feigned a pout.
“I’ll write to you both,” I promised. “Uh, I don’t think I brought anything to write your address on…”
“It’s okay, sugarcube,” Applejack said. “Ah’ll send ya that address!”
“Thanks. How are things in Ponyville, by the way?”
“Nothin’ much goin’ on,” she shrugged. “As for welcomin’ ya, gettin’ them ponies to accept ya ain’t goin’ as easy as Ah hoped, not that we really expected smooth sailin’. Ya mention a changelin’ to them, they run for them hills like wild bulls in a rodeo! But we ain’t givin’ up!”
“So, basically, it’s no better than the Crystal Empire,” I sighed.
“Hey, we’ll get there, dontcha worry! But ya can still drop by as Crystal Hoof an’ nopony will know a darn thing! Betcha Spike will be pleased as punch to see ya if y’all wanna drop by an’ see ‘im!”
“I’d love to, Applejack, but Shining will fry me if I do!”
“Aw, ponyfeathers!” We were at the station now, and apparently the train was waiting for us. “Well, guess that’s goodbye, then.”
“Only for now. I have every intention of seeing you again! All of you!”
“Hey, we haven’t hugged you!” Little Strongheart exclaimed. “You said you wanted it!”
So they did. Group hugs were wonderful! So warm, and fuzzy, and delicious… divinely delicious... I could have stayed like that all day!
“All aboard!” the conductor called out.
“Gotta go now,” I said, breaking gently out of the hug and rushing to the nearest train car. “Bye guys! See you soon, I hope!”
They said their goodbyes too and waved after me, but I couldn’t hear the exact words over the noise of the moving train. I didn’t have to; their auras of love were pleasantly warm and bright!
Sentinel had already picked a seat by the time I lost sight of the two ponies and the buffalo and decided to join her. We were the only two passengers in this train car, and thought I intended to keep my disguise until we were back in the Crystal Empire, I saw no reason why we couldn’t talk openly.
“You’ve been awfully quiet ever since we left Braeburn’s cottage,” I said.
“Just thinking about how I handled the situation there,” she sighed. “Could have done it better.”
“But things turned out fine! We got the charges dropped, didn’t we? Okay, so the sheriff chained me up for a while, but that doesn’t mean-”
“It’s not about him chaining you up, it’s about what I did afterwards when he tried to drag you away! You saw the arrows!”
“Yes, you were trying to make a point-”
“But that’s not how a Royal Guard is supposed to make a point, not to a town sheriff! If a criminal were trying to kidnap you, yes, then it might have been justified, but I clearly overstepped all boundaries, in fact, I acted more like a criminal than like a Royal Guard! I could get court martialed for it!”
“I see. Um, for what it’s worth, I appreciate your intentions, and you have my word that Shining or Cadance or anypony else won’t hear a peep about it!”
“Maybe not from you, but if Sheriff Silverstar lets it slip or reports it deliberately…”
I winced. “...you’ll be in trouble.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“What’s the punishment for what you did?”
“Prison. The exact length of time can vary, but basically it’s several years. Plus I can forget rejoining the Royal Guard afterwards. Probably the Wonderbolts, too.”
“I’m sorry!” I pondered this for a moment. “Hey, if you do get sent to prison, maybe I can go instead of you, disguised or otherwise? I mean, you wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for me, so it’s kind of my fault-”
“That’s not how it works, Thorax. No one can be sent to prison in place of another, and anyway, it isn’t your fault. I did it on my own volition and you can’t be held responsible. And even if you could go to prison for me, I wouldn’t let you! I did it to keep you out of prison!” She slumped against the window. “I just wish the world were a more normal place… maybe then we wouldn’t have to do bad things for the best of reasons…”
The conductor showed up and asked for our tickets. Sentinel presented hers absent-mindedly. My heart skipped a beat because I hadn’t bought one, but looking at Sentinel’s ticket, I realized it was the same one we’d bought in the Crystal Empire; I’d forgotten that she’d asked for return tickets! Mine would be somewhere in the saddlebag, then…
I found it soon enough and presented it. Apparently it was good enough, as he simply clipped it and made a note of the current date and time like he’d done with Sentinel’s ticket, and moved on to the next car.
“If it comes to that, is there anything I can do to keep you out of prison?” I asked when we were alone again.
“Probably not. But you might be asked to testify in court, and what you tell them might have a bearing on how long a sentence I get, either by shortening or by lengthening it. Or it might not. I don’t know really; I haven’t had much experience with courts.”
“So you can’t tell me what to tell them if I’m asked to, um, testify?”
“The truth. That’s what’s expected of you, and don’t worry about how it might affect me.”
“Can I at least write to you if you get locked up?”
“I don’t see why not, though you’ll have to be aware that the guards read all mail that prisoners send and receive, so don’t write anything you wouldn’t want them to know.”
“But Spike said that isn’t done in pony society!”
“He was referring to normal letters. Prisons are different, and letters are read with the idea of intercepting anything potentially dangerous and foiling any escape plans and such.”
I nodded. This was similar to what was routinely done in the hive.
“Hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I’d like to take a nap now if I can. It’s getting late, we’ve had a rough day, and the ride will take all night. You should get some rest too.”
“I will in a moment. Good night!”
“Good night,” she muttered, curling up in her seat.
I remained awake for a little longer, looking through the window at the landscape bathed in the receding light of the setting sun. Appleloosa was long out of sight by now, but it would be a while until we reached the next town, and then some more until Ponyville. How I wished I could stay there for a day or two! I could see Spike again, and catch up with him, and see the town, and meet some new friends! Maybe, just maybe, I could even show some of them my undisguised face! But that would have to wait; the ponies of Ponyville weren’t yet ready to accept a changeling into their hearts, and Shining would probably rip my own heart out if I failed to obey his demands. I didn’t want to give him a reason to!
When the landscape became too dark to make out much detail from the moving train, I followed Sentinel’s advice and curled up in my seat to sleep.