//------------------------------// // 87.7 All Bees Seek a Rose // Story: Prey and a Lamb // by Lambs Prey //------------------------------// What had happened? What had occurred on the side of Mount Canter, there betwixt the land and sky, between Prey and the changelings? And that was their name. Changelings, not mimics. Scoured and burned by the retreating light of Harmony, ribbon freshly lost, and almost too weak to move, how had Prey gotten away from them? No one had helped him. No one had come to save him. He'd been alone on the mountainside. A bitter refrain which rang so true; '~I am free, so wonderfully free. I love no one, and no one loves me.' The story of the cuckoo bird isn't one most ponies impart to their foals. The cuckoo has a pleasant enough song, but every time you hear one sing, it means there was a nest of eggs out there which never hatched, pushed from the tree by the cuckoo chick. The cuckoo is a parasite, feeding off the diligent work of the parents with ever-increasing demands for food until they are flown to exhaustion. Only then, once it has taken everything it wants, does it fly off without a backwards glance, to find an unattended nest and lay an egg of its own. The story of a cuckoo bird is much the same as the changelings in those old tales of children replaced in their cribs. Again, not a story most ponies told their foals. The story of the cuckoo bird is one of the uncaring cruelty of nature, but is all utterly true. The story of foal-snatching changelings of the fae legend? Or maybe, it should have been a story about proper 'Changelings'. The real ones. How much truth from the first unpleasant story could you find in the second? The story of the cuckoo bird, and those old dark stories of changelings, which may have held a lot more truth in them than anyone would've liked. An imposter that could be anyone and anywhere; a changeling. An army of changelings. A war swarm of changelings. That is what there had been, preparing to take the tunnels up into the middle of Canterlot. They had only been days away from unleashing their attack and washing the streets of Canterlot red. So where were they? Why were Lemon and Prey still in Canterlot, if a tide of chitin and fangs was supposed to be coming to wash them all away? Where was this changeling invasion right now? And what lessons could you learn from those tales? The first, a true story of cuckoo birds in nature. Then the old stories of fae changelings, which might be more accurate than anyone had ever realised. And a third story. A third tale. Not quite in the same theme, and not about imposters or chick infanticide. Just a third, minor, self-contained story. It was however another true story. Again, it was one encapsulating an instance of nature's unfeeling and merciless cruelty. The hawk wasp. A vicious insect which stings another, larger animal, and lays its young inside the hapless victim. Then the larva hatch, and eat the host alive. From the moment the insect is stung, they're essentially dead. They just have yet to die and release a new swarm of hungry wasps to find more victims. The cuckoo and the changeling replace the victim, wheedling sustenance, love, and attention from the parents, slowly draining them dry. The wasp isn't like that. It doesn't replace or trick or disguise itself. It kills the victim, and from the shell of the body, releases something worse. ------ '~Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, When something inside, started to stir, Down Humpty fell, down to his death, And from within, all the yoke and the mess, That little something, took its first breath~' ------ Afterwards, now truly, completely alone on the mountainside, once his strength had finally returned to his muscles, Prey had sat and laughed until he cried, and sang that old twisted version of the children's nursery rhyme. It had been because of what the changelings were. Their strength. What in any other situation, would have been an overwhelming advantage. How hilarious! How tragic. Prey laughed and laughed, and couldn't stop laughing. It was just too damned twistedly funny, he couldn't help it. And only he got the joke. "Me, it was me, oh me. Khe-he-he. Me! And no one will ever know!" Just. Like. That. A touch is all it takes. And a touch was all it took. A hive mind. A huge, overwhelmingly powerful and alien intelligence. A link to every changeling mind in the war swarm. Prey had felt the vast, innumerable sparks for just a moment. A moment of helpless despairing, where he comprehended the power of the hive. Despair. Then, a miracle. Just a moment. Just a touch. It was just so damned funny that he, Prey, the weak, despicable runt lamb, had ended an army with just a touch. It was impossible, but it was true. "And just, khe-ke-he-he! And just like that! All those years, fighting the Border Guard! And in one moment, oh-ha-ha-Ha! One moment, and I killed more than I ever have all put together. Tens times, a tens of times!" He had saved Canterlot from invasion, the city he hated, and he could now officially claim to be their hero. The irony was so thick he could have used it to replace the train tracks. Prey had felt it. All those changelings, just gone! There had been a terrible, wordless scream as the hivemind broke. Through the backlash, he thought he'd felt strong individuals breaking themselves free of the hive mind just in time, but how many? A hundred? Two hundred? Double or triple that? What a tiny number compared to all those who hadn't escaped the vast hivemind's implosion. The young ones, the freshly hatched, all the drones in the vast war swarm. In essence, all the children. But it was not because of anything Prey had managed. No achievement, no hidden skill, no feat of mastery. The hivemind was not weak against a mind leech like him. It was strongest against a mind leech like him. It was so huge, so strong, able to shrug off the mental attacks of one annoying wasp and crush it with the overwhelming weight of thousands. Prey should have lost. He would have lost. He wouldn't have even been able to hold out for a second. A mind bridge goes both ways, and the link he used to touch other minds could be seized, forced wide, and used to crush his own. But Prey wasn't the hawk wasp in this story. No, he was just its' host. Down in the depths, the ocean depths the blackness of which light would never touch, the hive mind had effortlessly reached. It'd had no warning, no stirring. Hunger does not wake up, not when it is always hungry, always starving. No light against the dark. No dark trying to snuff the light. Nothing but-BiteEatFeed. ------ And like so, Prey had inadvertently killed the changeling war swarm. It was as simple, and as difficult as the impossibility it was. When something is impossible, and then it becomes possible, how easy is that impossibility now? Is it still impossible, or is it now easy? Under the mountain, there were now tunnels crammed full of unmoving black bodies. So very many. So many it was just a number, a number made up of thousands of ones. Thousands of individuals. And you know what? Prey didn't give a damn. He felt no guilt. Thousands he'd killed by accident, before he'd even fully realised what was happening... and he didn't care at all. Prey laughed. He didn't regret it at all. There was no false remorse swirling in his chest, only giddy relief. Harmony hadn't burned out a piece of him and replaced it with a false conscience, always a danger with powerful, unknown artifacts that could manipulate your mind. The changelings had come for war, they had attacked him, and through utter blind luck, the slimmest of chance, they'd enabled their own deaths. They couldn't have foreseen it. No one could have. A piece of unreality, locked away inside a twisted and warped mind. Such a thing didn't exist in this world, because it wasn't real. How could you foresee something which wasn't real? "Serves you all right, you Zoma'Grika cockroaches!" He, Prey, had committed a genocide. And he did not regret it at all. Look inside yourself. Deep inside yourself. What do you see? "I see victory! I see me alive. Me, I won. Khe-he-he! Imagine, just imagine what Torment would say about me know! Ruin, Stinger, Razor, I've beaten your record a thousand times over, me, Prey, the weak runt lamb. And, ha ha, the best part is, khe-he-he, I didn't even mean to!" Prey hadn't beaten the changelings. He wasn't some great general commanding an army. He couldn't claim any merit, if any merit could be found in this atrocity. Just as well might the mountain trekker who accidentally knocked off the first pebble, claim the credit for the avalanche which wiped out the village below. It was the exact same principle here. He wasn't the hawk wasp in this story. He was just the unhappy host. Prey's exhausted laughter had eventually turned into sniggers, and finally wound down into weak, sporadic chuckling. The gentle but cold mountain breeze blew by overhead in the empty sky. Then he glanced at the black body of the closest changeling laying broken over the train tracks, distended jaw sagging open, and it was enough to set him off into fits of black humour. Thousands of dead was too big of a number to understand. But here before him was one of that number, a thin changeling, hungry looking, insect wings crumpled, weakened by the light of Harmony which had just swept the land, and those pupilless, solid blue eyes which would never see again. Counting to one is so much easier than counting to ten thousand. Fifteen thousand? Or twenty thousand? But one is one, and here was one. "He-he-khe, I don't care. I don't care about your death, because you wouldn't leave me alone. I just wanted to be left alone. And now I'm alone, and you're dead. Oh ha-ha-ha!" All at once the grand truth of it came to him. It was a brilliant epiphany of insight. How many of these changelings had he just accidentally killed indirectly? Too many for him to know, but that was part of the point. This must be exactly how Celestia had seen the Resistance and all the border villages they'd relentlessly tormented. The Sun Wolf just didn't care. She hadn't cared. It was the exact same situation. She saw, she understood, she knew, but look! Look at all these dead changelings. Prey didn't accept any responsibility for their deaths. He didn't care about what his own hoof had indirectly wrought. And if he, a mortal didn't care, how much less would the immortal sun goddess care? That was so unfunny, so sobering, that it went right back out the other side and was instantly hilarious for entirely the opposite reason. Prey couldn't breathe, and his sides ached fiercely by the time he next managed to stop howling with laughter. When Prey got his strength back, he staggered around to the fallen changelings, pushing, shoving, and rolling them into a rough pile. Their thick carapaces were hard and organic under his hooves, but thin and light. Prey grunted and shoved. They smelled faintly acidic. He didn't know what he'd been expecting. Their solid eyes didn't glare at him accusingly, because Prey knew they were dead. The dead don't accuse. He paused to rest for a moment, and with morbid fascination, flicked up and down the transparent eyeshield membrane, which slid out of their heads to cover the whole eye. Light and starved as the bodies were, there was no way Prey had the strength to pile them all up. He more just sort of got them all lying together. He had to stop and rest again, and then summoning the dregs of his returned strength, spent the next three long hours under the mountainside sky building a runic array to deal with the bodies. Because knowledge was power, and these thin bodies were evidence. No one could know. No one could find out. He didn't care what he'd done here. But others would. So they couldn't be allowed to know. Three hours where he could have been moving, getting out of here, or getting back to where it was safe. 'Or beyond.' Prey had stopped then, and looked down at his forelegs. His bare forelegs. Luna's tracer bands were gone. If he ran, would he make it? Could he make it? His lair was here, his wickerwatch was here, but those could be abandoned or replaced given enough time. Lemon Pink could be contacted to follow after him. But he still didn't have any method to prevent Luna finding him in the dream realm, though. One leash was gone, but the other intangible tether remained. Or was it actually a noose, one which Luna would hang him with if he attempted to escape in the chaos? The bodies of thousands lay still cooling right now because of him, a fate so pitiable as to make even the xenophobic ponies they'd meant to invade and abuse to weep, but that wasn't any concern of Prey's. This question was. 'Do I risk it? Do I run right now?' 'Do I leave Crimson?' ---<<>>--- It had balanced on the edge of a coin, so uncertain was his choice. He wanted to be free, and he didn't want to leave Crimson. But he couldn't have both. All Prey had ever wanted was to be left alone. Yet somewhere along the way, while unwillingly toiling away here in this hated pony land, Prey had found something more he wanted. A friend. To leave, or to stay? It was the split in the path, the crossroads, and Prey couldn't see what lay down either dark path. To take one would cut off the other forever. What did he do? What was he supposed to choose? He'd always been looking for a way out, a chance to run. The tracer bands were gone. This was his chance. Was it his chance? Could Luna still find him in the dreamscape? She hadn't done so yet though. Maybe that was only because she didn't give two half-bits, though. If he ran though, he would be hunted again, he knew that without a shadow of a doubt. By her, and by Crimson and the others, looking for their friend. He should go, he should. Prey knew he should. Why hadn't he gone yet already? He'd wanted this opportunity for so long. It would probably never come again. And yet still he was facing the same choice. Leave? Or stay? That was the level of mental anguish it caused Prey. When thousands lay freshly massacred by his hoof, they weren't what pained Prey's frozen black heart, but rather this choice. Crimson was worth more than the lives of every changeling to Prey. There were only two things Prey wouldn't do for Crimson. 'But I'll never get this chance again.' Above him at the top of the mountain, a golden prison waited. Below, the empty openness of freedom stretched before him. No one else, except possibly Lemon Pink, would ever understand what it cost Prey to make his choice. ------ Of course, that didn't mean he'd gone straight back up to Canterlot, oh no. No, he'd had much more important things he had to see to first. Vital, dangerous things. So he'd crawled back down to his lair, and there he'd remained for nearly three days working frantically until he was sure. Sure that his body was still functioning from after first Discord's chaos, and then the terrible burning of Harmony. Sure that there were no changeling corpses left where a pony might find them. Sure that the war swarm really was gone. Sure that his runic arrays were still all intact. And sure through failed attempt after failed attempt, that the still fresh, mind dead and soulless but still breathing bodies of changelings couldn't be used to host a consciousness. He really tried, using every method he could think of, utilizing Lemon's limited available help too, but in the end he'd had to wash his hooves of the green ichor and accept it couldn't be done. It had been a bitter pill, but nothing when compared to the sweetness of being the victor, and still being alive. Only then had he gone back up the mountain and trotted back into Canterlot. And here he was right now. "And do you know what he said, you know what?" Lilly grunted in anger as she struggled to balance on her meldwood leg while lifting up her saddlebag with the other. Gloom moved to help her get the saddlebag onto her back, "No, we don't know. Let me assist with that-" "Don't, I got this. I can do this." Lilly insisted. With effort, she managed to finally turn herself around enough without falling over to slip the saddlebag on. "See? I totally got this. Yeah, anyway, what the doc said? You know what he said to me?" Prey dropped down from checking the street out the front window of Lilly's house, "To repeat what Gloom just said, no, we don't know." "That jerk told me I'd won a place at the annual Magical Medical Convention. As a specimen! They wanted me to stand there on a stage while all of them poked and prodded me. And you know what he said?" Lilly demanded in outrage. "You mean besides what you just repeated to us? Then no, we still don't know." Prey put in with a saccharine smile, which had Gloom shooting him a look which said; '-you're not helping-' "He told me that it was an honour to even get an invitation in the first place!" Lilly fumed, the disfiguring root growing down the side of her face standing out starkly. "So you told the doctor no." Crimson observed blandly, "I mean, I hope you told him no." "I didn't just tell him no, I told him hell-the-Tartarus-bucking-Nightmare-no, and that if he wanted a freakshow so badly, he could get a mama'duke to eat his leg and shove a tree up it instead!" Crimson nodded, holding open the door for Lilly with the feathered tip of a wing, "Good then. I mean, not necessarily all that, but also yes, that." Prey made a note that Lilly's rented accommodation could do with some easy to move doorstops. He'd noticed the doors around her new flat had the habit of drifting shut on their own. Gloom coughed, "You weren't wrong to say no Lilly, and it is completely up to you, but have you considered that it's possible one of those doctors might have an idea how to heal you?" Lilly looked away, "The hospital already did all the tests. They said the meldwood isn't coming out without me dying. It's, it's interwoven with my magic now. That's not gonna' suddenly change." "They don't know of any way to fix it right now," Gloom gently stressed, "But how about in a few years time? Ponies are learning new things all the time. The hope is still there." "I already know all that." Lilly struggled not to snap at him, "But it won't happen. I already know that. I know. I can't keep uselessly hoping for a miracle to fix me. If a miracle was going to happen, the Elements of Harmony would've-No. I've got to move forwards myself. I can't mope and wait around for somepony else to save me. If I don't make the effort to save me, nopony else is gonna' do it either." Gloom could respect that, and did. It was a very thestral sentiment she'd just expressed, to keep moving ever forwards to overcome your own problems without making a fuss. Prey's mouth twitched. That may be true of Lilly now, but look how long it had taken the stubborn mare to finally get to this point. All three of them had learnt this lesson while still growing up. Although Prey thought that disparaging comment, there wasn't any real heat behind it. Lilly got on his nerves, and she was an idiot most of the time, but he was still going to get her those doorstops anonymously dropped off in the post. Because he still found himself wishing her better than what she already had, both in her situation, and in her family. Prey didn't like wasting his precious time having to come around and visit like this, but he'd miss her if she was no more. He did not want to find her dead one day in her flat. Like if she hanged herself. Or if a shapeshifting changeling controlled her into acting out of suicidal depression instead. Or finding that a swarm had torn her and her neighbours into bloody shreds of flesh and gristle, and strung all their internals from the rooftops. A swarm, a war, and an invasion that was fated to never happen now. Or at least, not for years to come. If the changelings ever recovered from their losses in the first place. Ten thousand upon ten thousand. Some more, some less? What was a few more on either end of the scale? Prey smiled crookedly to himself, a small, twisted smile that was all the more twisted because it was real, 'And I still don't care at all. I sleep fine at night. Well, not fine, but not because of them. I already had trouble sleeping long before them. I regret nothing, and I don't have to care. It's wonderful.' The murdered diamond dogs. The villagers of Mayflower. The changelings did not deserve a place on the list alongside them, and never would. Prey regretted nothing. He made sure that fact was firmly affixed in his mindscape. "Right, I'm ready. Let's go." Lilly said, and limped out the door. Both in annoyance and good humour, (an oxymoron of an emotion), Prey went out into the afternoon sun. It was the usual trio of them, plus Lilly. Outside, he shaded his eyes to check the sky overhead, then in derision pointed out a flier on a lamppost about new-age crystal healing to Gloom for a cheap laugh, while Lilly awkwardly got her key into the door, and for those few minutes, he was simply part of the group. Just one of them. But Prey thought too much, it was one of his weaknesses, and the worst case scenario was never far from his thoughts. It was all too easy to look twice and see the things he hated all around, and not enjoy the moment. The houses and streets of Canterlot rose and stretched around him in every direction. Whichever direction he turned, he saw the pony capital. Wherever his eyes landed, he saw ponies and their influence. Prey wasn't free. He had come back to this, back to these cobbled streets and shining spires. Streets which glaringly weren't overflowing with mixing blood and green ichor. What did he owe Canterlot and its ponies? Nothing. Gloom snorted in amusement at the ridiculous flyer, and Crimson turned his head, one ear cocked in question to what was so funny. Gloom pointed out the flyer and explained the joke. Prey didn't look at Canterlot, he looked at them instead. Gloom with his almost signature black scarf, Crimson with his tied back lanky mane, both with their tufted ears and yellow eyes, and both so much more important than ever. What did he owe them, and most especially Crimson? Who cared about Canterlot and the thousands of innocents who lived here? They were spoilt ponies, and had the Sun Wolf to protect them. Crimson and Gloom here were worth more than even ten times all the changelings he'd killed, or all the citizens of Canterlot, whom only lived because he'd killed those same changelings. Not that Prey believed for one second that all of Canterlot would have been wiped out. As he'd just observed, they had the Sun Wolf to protect them, along with the Elements of Harmony. When Prey thought about the citizens who yet lived because of him, he meant only those who would have died before the Sun Wolf purged the war swarm in fire. The damage and death would have been vast and terrible on both sides, the changelings would have emerged right in the heart of Canterlot after all, and would have reaped hundreds of lives within the span of minutes. The swarm would have been defeated in the end he was sure, but in war, there are no winners. Only survivors. That wasn't the point though, the point was, as Lilly finally got her door locked in a jangle of keys, was it wasn't for this city he so despised he'd returned. It was because of his friends. It was the same reason Prey'd spent his first night back inside Crimson's room. Because, he'd realised, for all the attention he'd lavished upon runically securing his own room beyond all doubt, there were only a few basic silent alarm arrays set up inside of his best friends flat. And that was an unacceptable state of affairs to allow to continue. Hence why he'd wanted to stay in Crimson's flat. Because he was his friend, yes, but also because Crimson was his friend and had to be protected. Crimson was a warrior, and he could fight. That meant nothing to a poison dart through the window in the middle of the night. Crimson was his friend. That was the whole reason he'd made the seemingly impossible choice, no matter how much it hurt, to return to this city. To his friend. To his friends. 'Alright, that's enough lukewarm melancholy for today,' Prey derided himself, 'You came back here, you chose this. So get it together.' He may have cause to regret this in time, but he'd made his choice and it was too late to take it back. The world wasn't fair, and he wasn't happy with the way things were, which meant it was up to him to do something about it. The world would take and take and take. It was up to you to try and snatch back as much as you could and to make a living out of it. There was a saying Prey had heard which summed it up quite nicely, the lamb reflected as they trotted out onto the street and pedestrians immediately crossed the street to avoid their little group. It went; 'Your brother's wheat field didn't harvest itself. Your thistle field isn't going to either.' The meaning was; it doesn't matter if it's either wheat or thistle, both fill an empty belly. Make the most of what you have, take all you can get no matter what it is, don't waste time fantasizing about what might've been yours, and give nothing back. --- *thump* *splat* 'Maybe the saying, 'When life gives you lemons make lemonade' would've worked just as well.' Prey thought. 'Or, 'To reap you must first sow'. Or perhaps even 'Every stormcloud has a silver lining?' Those would mostly all work too.' *thump* *splat* Despite a barren appearance, the wasteland of life could hide myriad opportunities if you were willing to both dig deep enough, and get your hooves dirty. Life was also full of danger, heartache, pain, misery, unfairness, death, and suffering, but it did hold opportunities too. It all depended on if you were willing to go that far, and if you could pay the price. Because everything has a price. *thump* *splat* Prey was willing to get his hooves dirty. Not just his hooves, he was willing to swim through the foulest of mires if it meant surviving. And he had. Survival wasn't pretty, and Prey had survived the Deeper Green, the Resistance, the Border Guard, Captain Valour, Garrow, Mayflower, Luna, Discord, and latest of all in a long line of almost deaths, the changelings. *thump* *splat* Prey let the terrible acidic smell wash by him. The trick wasn't to ignore it, because the throat-clogging stench was so thick and acrid that you'd start choking if you tried to fight it. No, the trick was to not care, so that although it was just as bad, you could at least move through it. *thump* *splat* Went the rhythmic sound of falling and landing once again, a slow dreary ticking of some massive clock. Between each tick was a pause of thirty or so seconds. And then... *thump* *splat* Without fail, the next one would come. It was a slow count, but one which only ticked upwards. Could you hear it in the stone shrouded darkness? Tick... Tock... Tick... *thump* *splat* Tock. And another one was added to the pile below. Thump and splat it went, right on schedule. Another lemon thrown by life, another thistle in the sheaf. If not for the smell and the dark of the sewer tunnel, then- *thump* *splat* -Then the noise might not have been so bad. After all, each time it came, Prey's stockpile of material grew that little bit higher. "Actually the most appropriate saying that comes to mind is 'waste not want not'." Prey mused out loud. *thump* *splat* Another chitin-covered changeling body fell the short distance to splat into the basin of the waterlogged Sewer's Heart. And it was a splat, not a splash. Because the under the thin film of dark water, innumerable wickerwatch tendrils were packed together into a solid, slowly swaying mass. *Thump* the sound of the latest changeling body coming free of the black tunnel mouth above. *Splat* of it hitting the rubbery mass of wickerwatch fronds. Slowly, it sank beneath its own weight between the tendrils and was hidden from view. Another one hidden from view. A pause, and then like clockwork: *thump* *splat* The very next changeling body was slowly pushed out by the roaming wickerwatch tendrils in the trickling tunnel above. In every tunnel branching off from the Sewer's Heart, the slow moving water level seemed to rise halfway up the tunnels. The reason why wasn't the volume of water, but the volume of what slowly moved under the water. *thump* *splat* Waste not want not. Prey and Lemon had finally ventured cautiously out beyond the safe zones of Prey's runic defences further into the winding crystal caves. Or rather, they'd sent a wicker shambler to shuffle into the dark, limbs jerky, head twisted, and trailing long damp umbilicals of wickerwatch behind it. *thump* *splat* And there, beyond the reach of the light, they'd discovered the bodies filling the tunnels. The remains of the war swarm. The wicker shambler hadn't been able to get past the blockage, that's how many of the thin, insectile bodies had been jammed together. A veritable wall of still, unmoving corpses in the silence under the mountain. There were too many to count. More than he could ever find down all the twisting turns and pockets of space in that maze of stone. The first few were only just starting to die and rot, but the rest were soon to follow in a wave of acidic stink. *thump* *splat* A body could survive for three days without water. Changeling bodies seemed to have been able to go a bit longer. Not that it mattered. They were already dead. Without a mind and a soul, a body is dead. Even if it hasn't stopped breathing yet. *thump* *splat* Prey remembered how desperate he had been to get his hooves on a changeling corpse, both as proof and as to study it. Now, with its twisted sense of humour, life had given him more 'lemons' than he could ever use in time. Prey breathed in through his mouth, "But waste not, want not." *thump* *splat* ------ In the deep indigo distance of his mindscape's sky, ash slowly swirled in ways which would be impossible in real life. But this wasn't a real place, and so it didn't matter what was impossible or not. After all, aren't dreams often made up of the most wild and impossible flights of non-sensical fancy? The dream danced above, like a film or bubble stretched over his mindscape. Prey was watching his dream from down inside his mindscape, not quite separate but also not quite dreaming either. When Prey willingly dreamed, this was usually how it went. An in-between state. His mind wasn't active, like where he still needed to force his mind to think and plan even if his body was asleep. Nor had he sunk into the ocean of his inner mindscape, and down past the twilight zone into unconsciousness. Prey was simply... in-between. He wasn't desperately planning, and he wasn't so tired that he'd been slipping away upon placing his head on the pillow. No nightmares of guilt had tried to raise up twisted heads of a thousand dead changelings, either. That would first require that Prey felt guilt over their demise. He didn't. When Prey's shrivelled little heart beat, it only beat to pump the slurry of black ice around. It was locked away inside a cage of metal jaws. Or that's what it felt like, at least. He didn't regret the changeling deaths at all. And he never would. Prey had too many other regrets to make room for something of this scale, especially when they'd brought it upon themselves by refusing to leave him alone. That wasn't a price he could afford. Time drifted like the lazy ash in the false sky. Prey floated along, placidly watching the formless shifts of the dream above. There was no rush or hurry in the moment of the dream. '~Humpty dumpty sat on the wall............' '.........~Wheat n' barley dance and sway~..........' '..........A stich in time, running through the hangmare's twine~' The time of rest was pleasant in its passing. Up until it wasn't. The grey ash of the world billowed about, suddenly agitated. The purple sky of the dream above bent inwards, as if being pressed by a force from outside. '...Wrong.' It was wrong. Prey's sleeping mind awoke to full consciousness in a state of alarm. He instantly knew what was happening. 'Luna.' She'd broken her promise to leave his dreams alone yet again! Hate, fear, dismay, and more hate. 'Quick, hide.' The reaching presence of cold starlight entered to find a false dream scene, a thin shell spun up to hide everything beneath. The shell was of nothing important, simply a large room with a huge fireplace, tiny undersized tables and chairs, and invisible birds singing from somewhere. Prey waited, hidden in his mindscape, watching Luna's presence 'look' around and settle itself. How he wished to attack, to tear at the hated alicorn, but he would never win and would only doom himself in real life. 'Why is she here? What does she want to take from me now?' Prey hadn't seen Luna even once since the secret night in Ponyville. There had been nothing from her, no orders passed on by Nighthawk, no follow up warnings to stay quiet or die, simply nothing. Perhaps Luna simply hadn't felt the need to. Until now. Luna's shapeless presence, filled with the impression of the full moon on a clear night, seemed to have finished examining Prey's 'dream' without interfering. But not anymore. "Awake Prey, awake! Attend to us, for your princess commands you. Come forth." The command rippled out across the dream with power, a command, one which Prey felt adding clarity and trying to bring consciousness to what should have been a sleeping mind. This wasn't going to be a test where Luna subtly probed his dreams and interpreted the impressions, this time the Night alicorn wanted to talk and she wanted Prey to remember this conversation when he woke up. Every single thing about this boded ill, but what other choice did Prey have as he let himself 'wake up' to answer Luna? None. He never had. Prey made the large room sharpen, the impression of knots and grain in the floorboards forming, windows which had always been there and yet hadn't appearing on the now four, not five, walls. But Prey did not make himself a dream avatar, he just let himself be 'there' in the middle of the room. Prey made an effort to project confusion around, which of course Luna easily sensed. "It is us Prey, thy Princess. Calm, thou art yet asleep. We art in thy dream." Even here, Luna was somehow loud. "Why? What's going on?" Prey asked, still faking confusion at the situation. "It is us, Princess Luna. We have need to speak with thee, we have put this off for too long already. Come, will thou not appear? Thou art safe here." 'I'd be safe if you hadn't barged in at all.' Prey internally snarled. "I don't know what...? This is a dream? I'm here, aren't I?" "Hm. Even in thy own mind thou does not take on a dream avatar. It is most strange..." Luna trailed off in thought, then shook it off, "Tis' not important now. This is a dream, and thou art who thou art." The presence of Luna abruptly solidified into her alicorn form, but because his was a dream, it was as if she'd always been there. Silver regalia glittered around her neck and on her brow even more brightly than it did in real life, her dark mane of stars billowing all around, and not just flowing out behind her. She stood too, not floated or flew in place. It was just an avatar though, and Prey didn't let his guard slip for even a micro second. A form meant nothing here. In real life Luna shouldn't be able to see behind herself for example, but this was a dream, and she was still utterly aware of everything in it. Or aware of the shell of a dream Prey was hiding in, at least. Yet even with none of it being real, and the avatar of Luna being nothing more than essentially a puppet in strings, in the subtle hints of the avatar's controlled features and cold eyes, it somehow still looked almost... resigned. Not happy about something. Yet determined to see it through. But it was just an avatar, it could look like whatever Luna damn well wanted it to look like, so Prey dismissed the false observation immediately. "Art thou well Prey?" Luna asked. The question was utterly stilted, like Luna was simply asking out of a passing desire to see what it was like to play at being polite. "I'm fine, I think?" Prey answered, still playing up the confusion like he wasn't completely awake, casting around them in bemusement. "Princess Luna, I mean." "Thou must be truly tired, as are all of our loyal Night Guard at present, a necessity we regret, but we must all do our part in getting our beautiful country up and running again. Even now, there is still much left to do after that tyrant, Discord." Luna mused, and then was silent for a space. Why was Luna bothering to waste time speaking about something he already obviously knew, and that she obviously knew too instead of whatever she'd come for? 'I hate her. She always marches in, trampling us underhoof, and takes whatever she wants. I begged, she didn't listen. I almost drowned, she didn't listen. I told her no, she didn't listen. So what's she playing at now?' This was a trap. Prey didn't know how or in what aspect, but his instincts were screaming 'trap'! Then in a voice neither loud nor soft, neither hot nor cold, Luna's avatar irrefutably stated: "There is much we have had cause to regret. Before, and now. We do not expect you to understand, young Prey. For all thy achievements in our Guard, there are still lessons only time can teach a pony. Tis' no failing on your part, for all ponies were foals once. But regret does not come hoof in hoof with age. Regret need not come at all, if we could but...! Nay, regret is not limited to age, but by our own experiences." Prey was afraid. Hate and fear, the constant sour mix he always felt about anything to do with an alicorn, bubbled inside of him. He didn't know where Luna was going with this, and he didn't want to either. 'Just go away, go away, go away go away and leave me alone!' "It has come to our attention of late, that is to say, we have been made aware, or our sister has said... Tis' no easy thing. It never is, to have cause to regret. To have been in part wrong. Thou wilt understand this in time, thou hast the years of growth ahead of thee to learn it. But nevertheless.... nay, enough. What we mean to say to thee Prey goes as thus. Remember it well." With a huge effort of will, Prey did not let the fake shell of the dream recoil or shrink with the disgust and alarm he felt. What was this? Luna was an alicorn, she was never like this! "Thy father is not coming back Prey. We told thee this before, and now we tell thee thrice. The dead are gone. Let them go. This is a lesson we must be sure that thou understands. Everypony has their time." Prey didn't answer. He didn't move. He just watched Luna's avatar, and the presence behind the avatar. Luna sighed, "We see. This is why thou still needs the perspective of age. Tis' not our place to provide it, but thou wilt see it clearly when thou looks back one day. But enough. We have said our piece, and we will not speak further on this. There is yet one further point of regret for tonight that must yet be addressed." 'Zoma'Grika.' "Private Prey of our esteemed Night Guard, thou hast served us well," Luna announced, "Yet thy station and history still stands against thee. Thy deeds have been valorous, but laws are set and exist for a reason. A fact our sister has, ah, reminded us of. With Griffonia-Nay, another time. Laws we have ourselves given must be followed, or how else shall our little ponies know to follow our example? Such is the burden of leadership. Our word is our bond." 'What laws? Which laws is she talking about?! Which ones? Zoma'Grika!' Why was it always bad news? Why did Luna always have to do this to him? Why couldn't everyone just leave him alone! "So we hope that thou can understand Prey, that our actions are not a punishment or a declaration of distrust. Tis' simply what it is. Crimson Trace understood this before, thus his gracious acceptance of our judgement, but now thee must learn this too. And if thou canst see this action for what it is, then even better, for thus we will have no cause to feel regret." Prey felt power swelling from within the presence of Luna, building up. Prey wanted to flee, wanted to shatter the dream and forcefully wake himself up before whatever she was doing happened. But he couldn't run, because Luna would simply come for him in the real world if he did. It was mental agony to force himself to stay, but he had to, he had to! Prey had chosen to come back to Canterlot and Crimson. There is always a price. The building power within Luna, condensing down into something like threads of gold and silver, it was familiar. The sensation of touching something hidden and vast which he couldn't perceive, he'd felt it before. Alicorn Magic. The power to move celestial bodies, that mysterious, secret, and unknowable magic. Prey felt the alicorn magic more than saw or sensed, but he could never mistake it having experienced it before. But to have to sit here and wait for Luna to do whatever she was about to do with her hated filthy disgusting magic-! It was akin to been forced to watch the knife being brought closer, the branding iron, the pliers, and despite knowing that struggling was going to make it worse, but you couldn't not struggle. If he fled, Luna would be angry. If he woke up, she'd summon him in real life and do the same again. He wasn't supposed to be able to sense her magic, he couldn't give it away, he had to stay here in the dream and grit his teeth. He had to stay, he couldn't run from Luna, he wasn't allowed to.... ...Prey couldn't take it. "Don't touch me!" He couldn't do it, he couldn't just lay down and pretend he could stomach Luna's horrible magic. Prey's mindscape grabbed ahold of the dream and wrenched. 'Wake up!' He couldn't be here for even a second longer. Too slow. --- Prey kicked the weight of the blanket off him in a panic, heart thundering. He was panting for breath, and sweating. He fought to get off of his mattress as quickly as possible- Prey froze as his breath caught. He stared. Then, slowly, he slumped backwards onto the mattress. "I chose to come back here. I knew this might happen." Prey reminded himself bitterly. But his stomach still clenched with disgust, and he had to fight the instinctual urge to claw the fur and skin off his forelegs. Bound around his forelegs, a pair of brand new, but oh-so familiar golden tracer bands dully glinted. The slight additional weight he'd carried for so many months, but after only a week without, they now felt so much more heavy. For a flicker of a moment, part of Prey tried to look on the bright side that, hey, at least he hadn't woken up to whip scar cramp as well. The rest of him strangled that weak thought out of existence. But by all the rotting dead, he wanted the cursed golden things off. Prey didn't ask himself why, or about the unfairness, or why Luna had done this. Life was unfair. The reasons didn't really matter, did they? They wouldn't change anything. The facts were the facts. A rose by any other name would still be a rose, no matter how hard you might wish for a tulip. 'I chose to come back, I chose not to run. And yet still...' Prey's front door slowly, cautiously opened. And that simple fact immediately told Prey so much about who it could be even as he jerked his eyes up from his newly adorned forehooves to look. With all the runic arrays inscribed into Prey's flat, the list of people his door would open for was short. Gloom could open the door if the thestral used his copy of the key, but only if Prey hadn't set the arrays to reject visitors. Aside from himself, the number of people who could enter without need for a key though was exactly two. Lemon Pink, and Crimson. Prey met the yellow eyes of the red pegasus. He should get up, put up his smiling mask. Invite Crimson in, not let on how much he hates this. He couldn't summon up the energy though, not even for Crimson. "Hey." Prey sighed. Crimson's eyes flicked down to the golden bands, then back up. Prey saw no surprise or question in his expression. "May I come in?" He belatedly asked. Prey's wave wordlessly encompassed the door which had opened for Crimson, and how he now stood inside the flat already. Crimson stepped in far enough to slowly let the door swing shut behind him. His lanky mane was a trailing mess, not bound back into a warrior's braid, like he himself had only just woken up too. Crimson's wings flexed at his sides. "I'm sorry." He said at length. Prey let himself slowly slump over backwards until he was sprawled on his back across the mattress. He stared up at his ceiling, droopy ears flopped out to either side, "S'not your fault." He sighed. Prey heard the feathers of Crimson's wings quietly rubbing together as his friend shifted awkwardly, "But, I mean it's not..." "I know. I noticed." "You did? Of course you did. But this isn't fair. I didn't want this." "I know, and it's fine. Not your fault." "I didn't want this, it isn't right." Crimson reiterated, trying to convey his feelings across the empty space by words only. Prey half raised his head off the mattress, enough for him to see Crimson. And see the bare patch on Crimson's forelegs where his own gold tracer bands had been. Now, Prey wore them. "Don't worry, I understand. I do." "Princess Luna..." "Yes." "She came to me first. Just now, I mean. While I was dreaming." "I know." "She told me about this. About doing this, I mean. That it was the law, that I was in the clear but you are not." "Yeah, she told me that too." "I told her it wasn't right. I asked her why she had to. And then I asked her not to. Because it isn't fair." "I chose to come back to Canterlot. I didn't say so before, but, for a second, I thought about... just not." A quiet. Prey heard Crimson moving, trotting further into the flat, over towards the windowsill with its myriad potted plants stacked there. "Would you really have left?" Crimson asked almost wonderingly, like he could hardly believe he saying this. "Maybe. I'm sorry for that. But I didn't. I couldn't just up and-No. I didn't leave. I chose to come back after I got... fixed from Discord's touch. And I knew that something like this with Luna might happen again if I did, but I still made the choice. There isn't much for me in Equestria. Only one real reason to return if I'm counting, actually." "What about everybody else? Scenic, Gloom, aren't they your friends too?" Crimson asked. 'Aren't they reasons too'? Is what he was asking. "I... yes. I do mean what I said about them before. I chose to come back, didn't I? But if it really came down to it, I, I could leave them behind. If I really had to. It wasn't like they were in any danger, Discord was gone by then. So yes, they're part of the reason, but you're the main part." Prey mumbled. "That's.... nice. I mean, thank you, but I am not worth all of that Prey." Crimson said awkwardly. "Well, to me you obviously are," Prey admitted freely. "As I've told you, there are only-" "-Only two things you won't do if I asked, I know." Crimson repeated. He lightly brushed his hoof across the stubby leaves of a pot plant, staring unseeingly out of the second story window. "...Prey, this wasn't fair. On you. On me. We didn't ask for any of this. I've done my duty. You did yours, you came back, but still this happened. Again. Judged and punished again, I mean." Prey heard the angry bite in the end of Crimson's words, directed at their superiors. And even at Luna, for once. Prey rolled over and heaved himself up into a sitting position on the mattress, so he could properly address Crimson. "That's how it goes. I'm not saying I'm happy about this in any way, shape, or form. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't expecting something like this. The strong take, and the weak suffer. It's a story which always goes like this. Exactly like when Lord Vanish took your necklace with Luna's permission." Prey stated shrewdly. "You aren't weak." Crimson immediately said. "Then neither are you." Prey just as swiftly returned. Crimson hadn't said, 'we're not weak'. Neither had Prey. Because both had lost too many times to believe that they themselves were individually strong. And each hearing it said by the other, both of them saw the truth and the lie. Just look at all they'd achieved, at all they'd survived, at all they'd accomplished in the face of all odds. And then look at how much they'd struggled to get even that far, look how often they failed, lost, and fell. Prey's lips twitched in dark humour, unable to help himself, "I'm a runt lamb." "And I'm an exiled, genetic throwback." Crimson returned, looking back at Prey over his shoulder and raising an eyebrow with the same wry humour. "Heh." Prey snerked, perversely amused. This all felt so meaningless. Important, significant, but still meaningless. They'd done this before, hadn't they? Perhaps not exactly this, but conversations filled with unvoiceable meaning like it. It felt cheap. It felt important. How could this compare to what had been said between those breaths of time after surviving that morning outside of Mayflower? Were you supposed to compare it? Surely not. And yet here they both still were, both still talking and not talking, both still wanting to impart what they didn't even know they wanted to say into the silence of this latest setback. Crimson stepped away from the windowsill and its pot plants. He opened his mouth, searching for words, tufted ears twitching minutely this way and that as he struggled. Prey stopped poking at a golden tracer band in disgust and looked up expectantly. Enough time passed that he needed to blink five times before Crimson got his words into something resembling order. "I just want to say... I just want to make sure you understand me. I'm not great with words. But you'll get what I mean. I didn't want Luna to do this. It isn't fair. It won't suddenly become fair either. And I wish there was something I could do. I want to help. I wish I could help you the way I know how, but my way won't work. I know how to fight and fly, and not much else. I want to, I wish..." Crimson gestured helplessly with a limp wing, no strength behind the wordless expression, because he didn't know what he wanted. The uncertain gesture probably said more than Crimson realised. A pegasus's wings were their strongest limbs. Crimson was always so controlled and exact with every wingbeat when in flight, his feathers always so perfectly maintained. Prey waited, nearly holding his breath. Crimson's mental walls were bulging, the outlines of impressions almost discernible from behind them. But Prey waited in vain. Crimson let his wing fall shut to his side. He couldn't find the right words, and he grunted in frustration. "Damn it, I don't know. I just wish you were a pegasus, like me." Prey sat back, "Huh? I'm sorry, but I don't...follow? I mean, sure, I'd like to be something other than a runt lamb too, believe me, but what's the context?" "I mean, I wish you had wings. That you could fly like I do, because... it's free. So free. To look down, to feel your mastery over it all, to know that you're free like, like... like a bird I guess. To not be bound, trapped down here to the ground. I couldn't stand that, I have to fly. When I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm angry, when I'm lost, I fly. Flying, because it's so... I'm making a mess, I can't properly explain it." Crimson muttered, looking down and rubbing at the mess of his unbound lanky mane. "What I'm trying to say is, I want that for you too Prey. For you. Because you're my friend. I wish you could fly. Or that you would let me take you flying." Crimson raised his eyes up to catch Prey's. Prey winced. So that was what Crimson was asking. He felt no anger at Crimson for the suggestion, or for implying that he, a runt lamb, was physically inferior to a pony, because it was true and Crimson didn't mean it like that. Crimson fervently wished Prey could have been born more. But the joyous freedom of flight that Crimson was speaking about wasn't something he would ever get to enjoy. He had no wings, and so to fly meant being carried by another. "I see. But I'm sorry, I can't accept your offer Crimson. I can't let you take me up. Not that I fear you'd let me fall, I'm sure you'd catch me again, but that's something I won't do." "Even now?" Crimson asked searchingly, not needing to elaborate. "Sorry. Even now. I simply can't." Prey hunched his shoulders. 'Even now, there are still two things I won't do for even you Crimson. You'd do them for me, but I won't do them for you. You've always been the better person in that regard.' "Even now? If I said please? After everything?" Crimson tried. "No, I'm sorry." Prey mumbled. "Even, even not... even if I only wanted a hug, and not to share flying? Even then, just a hug?" Crimson asked, already resigned to the answer. Prey felt so ashamed of his weakness, his phobia right then. He sunk down further, almost retreating into his wool, "No. Sorry. S'not your fault. It's mine." Crimson took a deep breath, "There are only two things, huh?" He echoed, not offended or frustrated, simply resigned to the fact. It didn't matter if Prey's reason was silly to any outsiders perspective, it was important in a way that no one else but the red pegasus could understand, so that was the way it would be. Crimson understood, and Prey understood, so that was the way it would be. And when the time came for them to stand on the reversed sides of this conversation, Prey would do the same. Crimson shook himself, opening and refolding his wings, and taking a new stance. He spoke clearly, making an effort to move on afresh, "That's that then. Let's move on. Is there perhaps anything else I could do for you instead?" "No, no go back for a moment. I don't have anything else to talk about, and..." Prey briefly glanced down at the gold tracer bands, before stiffly forcing himself to turn his head away, "...And I don't want to talk about these. A distraction would be welcome. You were speaking about flying. It sounded nice. I do wish I was born a pegasus, or a griffin, or nearly anything other than a runt sheep. Tell me more about flying, please?" "Are you sure?" Crimson hesitated, "I didn't mean to sound..." "I'm not offended, don't worry. I hate this runt body, no don't look at me like that, it's the truth. How many times did you wish you were born a thestral back in your clan?" Prey pointed out. Crimson couldn't refute that, so Prey went on. "But life isn't fair, and if wishe'z were fishe'z, sorry, if wishes were oatcakes, and you know how the rest of the saying goes. But you've got wings. You can fly at least. So tell me more about it. I know how much you love it, but you haven't really spoken at length about flying before. So please, now's the chance. Educate me as to the joys of flight." Prey put on a smile. "If you're sure." Crimson checked, and when Prey nodded encouragingly, he slowly began unfolding some of the joys and mysteries of flying. Crimson wasn't a great speaker, but Prey could fill in gaps, and he asked questions in the right places, carrying on the conversation and drawing out more words from Crimson as time went on. Words about the satisfaction in finding a warm thermal of air right where you predicted, about the way it ruffled the tips of your feathers and buoyed you up into the endless sky. Crimson spoke of the heart pumping exhilaration of straining out of a dive, wings locked and wind fighting you to the edge of control. He struggled to explain the simple freedom of having flight even when you were on the ground. To simply look up, see a roof top, and know without even thinking that with a hop and flap, you would be up there for no other reason than just to see beyond. Prey wished he could have what Crimson spoke about. All of it, or even any of it. The wishing was tinged with bitterness, but also sour sweetness, because even if he didn't have it, Crimson did. Without being able to explain why, that somehow pacified the jealousy, even if the honest longing to have that ability for himself remained. Prey was no stranger to wishing he had what ponies did. Magic, flight, special talents, or even just the full sized body of an earth pony. But this was perhaps the first time he saw what he couldn't ever possess, simply because he'd been born without, and not hated ponies for that. After all, Crimson had been bitterly cursed to have been born with feathers instead of wing membrane, and had been rejected by his old clan. Lilly Blossom no longer had her magic. Saffron had been born without. Scenic and Carton were simple earth ponies. And as for Gloom, had he not fought and struggled for his life alongside them? Prey jokingly pointed the irony of that out to Crimson, and suggested they should call their little get-togethers 'club meetings' of the 'Cracked People Only Club'. Prey settled down further into his mattress as Crimson spoke more, listening, and finding simple enjoyment out of a conversation he wouldn't have appreciated with anyone else. Everything has a price, and Prey had willingly chosen to come back. Partly out of the very real fear that Luna could've reached him through the dream realm wherever he went, but also partly because of what he'd be leaving behind. Prey hated Canterlot. He wished Discord had burned it with fire. But it wasn't for the golden city he was forced to serve that Prey had returned. Friendship. What a fragile, powerful, heart twisting thing. Friendship. But what a harsh price it demanded. Prey did not pay it willingly, yet still he'd chosen to return and pay it. 'I chose this. Whatever consequences come later, I came back of my own accord. This time, I didn't abandon Crimson. I came back for my friend.' -The second great purge of the pre-reformation changelings. Restricted section One, level six. An account of the second great purge from the firsthoof recollection of a changeling from the time were precious few and even harder to obtain. No complete picture of events as they happened was ever fully constructed. Again, due to the sad circumstances of the changeling way of life pre-reformation, drones were born by the hundred without any higher brain functions due to the scarcity of love available to their eggs during incubation. Distressingly, it was the merciless logic of the infiltrators, and ultimately Queen Chrysalis, that their subordinates were disposable. "We were born fast, we lived hard, and we died hungry. There was no other alternative. We didn't even know there could be another alternative." -From one of the few surviving drones to be hatched post-first purge, but survive the second, who could be coaxed into speaking. "I don't know what happened. I don't. I can't know, because I got out before it could get me, out of the hivemind I mean. If I hadn't? Then I wouldn't be here to tell you, idiot. It was only by luck that I cut myself off in time. Everypony else didn't. It hurts to remember. I was too hungry and afraid back then, I couldn't comprehend. Now I do. I realise how little I was able to think straight back then. Now I can. And it hurts." Changeling drone, Blossom Bee. Thorax, the first Changeling King- "I'm sorry to anypony looking for answers, but I don't know what really happened that day either. I wasn't even near Canterlot at the time. I just remember the terrible loss afterwards, though. Like being paralysed. Our hivemind was gone. You can't understand what that loss meant, but imagine if tomorrow there was no sun in the sky. That is what losing our first hivemind meant. So much basic knowledge, so much vital history. Just gone. It took the then queen, you know who, an entire year to piece together enough magic and links to birth the second hivemind. It took so long. So many of us died, the drones I mean, without the support of the hivemind. I won't tell you the count. But nopony could go back into the old hivemind. Those who tried out of desperation... they aren't here today. So that's the sad history of the second great purge we survived. Is there more? Well, yes, but we aren't going to share it, for the good of everypony. There aren't any more answers to find, please trust me, and trying will only bring up old pain again. It was a bad, bad, bad time. We've moved on though, we had to. Survival came first. We had to frantically dig and bite to eke out even a fraction of the living we'd once had in the Badlands before. It would be a year before the then queen sent the first scouts back into Equestra for the, well, I think everypony knows by now the story of the Royal Wedding, so I won't bore you with the details again." ---I--- People as a whole forget. But the individual does not. Prey did not.