//------------------------------//
// The Changeling 
// Story: Mediocronomicon 
// by NorrisThePony 
//------------------------------//


Changeling Theory: An Anaylsis on the Origin and Influence of the Equestrian Changeling

by Aster Blackwillow


When a pony is born into this world, they do not always enter it alone. 

When a pony is first shunted out into the blinding chaos of this mortal life, there is a chance that another life enters alongside them. Unseen by onlooking midwives or parents, distracted as they are, it creeps out from the shadow of a new life’s gift. As a young filly cries out in confusion, and in terror… as the thread connecting them to the bliss of the womb is severed, this second life enters the world silently. Calmly. It scans the blinding light of the world not with the fear of its twin, but with an insatiable, hungry greed.

And, quickly, crawling upon motes of dust, or within the veil of shadows, this creature slinks away into the world unseen. 

This creature does not journey far. It watches from the glints of light just outside of our peripheral gaze. It perches in every dark corner of the room, driven by the same hunger it has felt since entering this life. It is the glimmer of movement one can never be quite certain they truly saw. It stalks its twin, never seen, but often felt by any lonely soul who might find themselves watched from within an empty room. And though a floorboard may creak, or a light breeze may send a curtain on a slight wayward wave, its twin will eventually sigh, or laugh to themselves for their foolishness, and turn away once more to their own mortal distractions. 

And safely hidden, the creature will continue to wait in silence. 

There will one day come a time in this pony’s life when the creature will cease its waiting. Sometimes, it will spend decades stalking its twin from the peripheral. Watching as its twin grows, and learns to navigate the strange world they share. The creature perhaps learning, too, of the world it can never truly inhabit by its own hooves. Other times, however, the creature’s patience endures moments, and it strikes at the same moment the infant enters the world. Perhaps the infernal wailing of its twin is enough to drive it into action. Perhaps it simply does not care enough about its world to bother learning how to inhabit it. The desires of the creature seem as inexplicable as the very nature of its being. 

When this creature’s patience ends, so too does the life of its twin. 

And, so too, does the creature’s own life begin anew. 

Around them the world carries on uninterrupted. Nary a leaf rustled, nary the sound of a hoof scuffing against the ground. From dust the creature has emerged, and to dust its twin returns. And from the same pony’s eyes the creature looks out at the life it had been watching. A faint glint of green may shimmer in its irises, for but a moment, perhaps indistinguishable from a simple trick of the light. 

Of course, changes will thus occur. The lives that the twin has known may notice a change in behaviour. Depending on how patient the creature has been, these changes may not be detected for years, if at all. Slight altercations to attitude, to preferences, to interests, and nothing more. 

Or, the changes may be dramatic. To the friends of the creature’s twin—madness. If the creature has chosen to strike the infant foal, then no change will ever have truly occured to anypony but the foal themselves. 

But at the moment of the hunt, nothing has truly changed to the outside world. For nopony has seen the creature strike.

A pony’s hoof has entered the world, and the creature’s hooves will continue the pony’s stride without a missed beat.

And into the world, fueled by the same calm precision that had framed its waiting, The Changeling emerges.