//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: The Night Can Change 
// by BlueyWaifu 
//------------------------------//

Manehattan had never felt so comfortable ever since Restel had returned. The combined factors of the invasion preparation, being stationed in Canterlot, and the physical exhaustion of the incursion, the city couldn't put him more at ease. Canterlot did, however, have its taste of differences, both good and bad. Ponies appeared more meek when compared to those of Manehattan, and navigating the mountain-side city was almost similar to the grounded streets and sidewalks of his station.

It was a first, however, spending time in a neighboring property of the metropolis. Taking an excursion to a campsite for one of the Manehattan scout's irregular meetups, it broke the monotony of seeing tall, blocky structures everywhere. A dense capacity of trees, an abundance of flourishing flora, combined with an ambience of nature's white noise, can efficiently get one lost in their own experience of it all. Coincidentally, that is the current state of Restel. Sitting on top of a ground-ridden log in a small clearing of trees, waiting for Faltic to show up, lost in his own thoughts.

At least the invasion helped changelings see Equestria.

Since returning to scouting, nopony showed any signs of putting any thought or care about changelings. Surely, an announcement from Celestia, newspapers, passing rumors and gossip, anything from the royal guard, none seemed to tamper with the regular, daily lives of ponies.

These city ponyfolk. So carefree.

Or so, that's what Restel believed. As far as he could understand, the invasion went just fine. All orders were obeyed, commands given were carried out to near perfection. Near perfection. Only one such hiccup could cast the occasional haze of fog in the mind of one who'd more than gotten over the changeling invasion, even after being actively involved. Even more so, the subject of the hazy mind weather was not but a few feet from Restel.

Klaven, a particularly fresh recruit into scouting, was huddled into the camping spots accompanying tent. Although finding success in scavenging for love in Manehattan, the typical cold weather never failed to bother the new face. Despite already knowing what his response would be, Restel idle-mindedly spoke up to break the silence of the cold night air.

"What're you doing in the tent?"

"Looking for something to keep me warm, it's so cold." Klaven's response emitted from the tent. A brief moment later, Klaven stepped out from the tent, a wrinkled looking sleeping bag enveloping him up to his chest. Restel, finally picking up his head from thought, peered over at the half covered changeling.

"You look like an item too big for the shopping bag."

"If I'm too big for the bag, that means I'm an expensive item." Klaven said, as he took his seat, just at the edge of the opening to the tent.

Had it not been for for whatever just struck the side of Restel's head, a snarky comment of being fat would've been thrown across.

"I'm here, halfwits."

Faltic. Even without seeing him, his voice outlined him to be easily recognizable from other changelings. That, and they'd practically spent the better part of their years growing up together. Of all the other changelings in the hive, Faltic was, in opinion, the most reliable one Restel knew. Ironically enough, each were deployed to a different sector during the Canterlot invasion. Restel, with his underling, both at Canterlot and at this campsite, and Faltic with his... whoever was with him. Strangely, in the time since their occupancy at Canterlot, he'd never thought to ask about Faltic's side of the story. For the time being, however-

Turning to meet the paper throwing menace, "So you decided to throw paper at me to announce it?"

Faltic could hardly stifle a laugh as he walked to an adjacent, perpendicular piece of oak on the ground and took his seat on it. "I thought it was funny. Just as entertaining as you telling us to meet out here. Oh, and hi, Klaven. You look ridiculous." 

Since becoming a scout, Klaven had only a chance to see Faltic once during the all hooves on board invasion. More often than not, he'd be seeing his higher up, Restel, for any minor complications in the field. Faltic appeared more experienced, and sustainable to be out in the big city for longer. 

"But warm!"

In a dim, hazy ball of kelly green magic, the crumpled and well-travelled brochure floated its way back to its original owner. While putting no thought into undoing the advertisement back to its original form, Faltic grew a lot more mind to initiate conversation. "So... why here? Just out of curiosity." Only one pair of gradient tinted eyes turned to Restel. The other pair fixated on paper unfurling.

"Knew you'd ask that, but c'mon. I know it was a little bit of a walk, but it's so much nicer than, what, our usual alleys? Abandon train station? A house that pretty much could be described as rubble?" 

Admittedly, something here did feel more pleasant than having a rogue chunk of housing fall on you. The only thing breaking Faltic's eye contact from his newfangled brochure was the weary, fanged smile that Restel was flashing him. "Sure, sure, whatever."

The second thought of conversation struck the mind of Faltic, but was quickly shot down, although considered. Too soon. Too soon to ask about it. Why not just strum a more casual chord? Klaven, however, decided to pick first.

"So... if we're out here, how come we haven't made a fire?" 

All eyes turned attention to the single lantern sitting in the middle of the trio, a small flickering flame lingered inside of it. Restel, with his dashingly quick wits, prudently leaned forward and kicked it over, shattering the protective glass on a rock. A sturdy flame took form, already flickering and cracking. Of all the natural sounds of the outdoors could produce, this was the only one pony made. Each crack and pop piercing any monotony the forest had.

Thankfully, and with a swift motion of magic from the kicking culprit, a circle of rocks surrounded the fire, making it a comfortable inferno to lighten the faces, and temperature, of the changeling's group.

Faltic, although taking a glance away from reading about the camp, didn't pay much mind to it. Klaven was the only one paying full attention to the impromptu fire making.

Springing up from the aforementioned grocery bag, Klaven's mind was visibly ignited with the same fashion of the fire. "That reminds me. I found something before you guys got here." With some speed, and little coherence to his step, Klaven trotted off from their established spot. He was easily taken out of view from the still sitting duo by the blanketing of trees. Faltic shifted his head away from his impromptu reading, and towards his peer, giving him a slightly concerning raised brow.

Restel already knew what he was going to say. What's up with him? Blah blah blah. Best to get to the point.

"I know, don't ask. He's new, he tries." Puffing up his chest and flexing his arms, Restel put on his best mocking Faltic voice. "Big changeling Faltic can get his mind out of his "scout mode" while we're here and away from it all."

"Ah shut up." Restel could already see the hint of a smile creeping onto Faltic's face. It was always nice to see his character differ from the usual stoic, by-the-book self. It was also relaxing to know exactly what brought it out. A strong suit of Restel's; helping his long enduring friend never to stray so far into being boring. By and by, they'd both ended up in the same status in the changeling hive. Thankfully, Faltic had no plans to go higher, because Restel definitely did not have half the mind to even think about it. Anything more would be constant paperwork, daily responsibility crap, and any slip up would make you paranoid of getting the axe. It never hurt to try and enjoy yourself. Evidence of that lied in the fact that of the two hundred percent effort the duo put into getting to where they are, about one hundred twenty five was to Faltic's credit. To the seventy five that Restel claimed, part of that was keeping his buddy from growing so boring. Yes, when there was work that needed to be done, it got done. Then what, look for more? Boring.

"What is that, by the way?" Restel pointed out, giving a gesture towards the paper in Faltic's hooves.

"Ehh, some kind of ad for this place that I picked up on the way here. Descriptions, a map, dumb looking pictures. See?" Faltic leaned toward Restel, also tilting the paper. The picture came into view, and it was exactly as Faltic had described. Two ponies, frolicking within a thick surrounding of foliage as happy as can be. Above was some text that Restel didn't bother to try reading, as first impressions implied it would be as lame as the photography.

"Dumb."

"Yup."

Before anything else could be said, the scraping trudge of dirt could be heard as Klaven came back into view around the trees. In the dirt, dragging alongside of him was a long, rectangular board with a circular hole in it, and two short stilts. An identical one hovered in a green haze to his opposite side. A thin trail could be seen tracing back to where they were fetched from, as he was hauling one with a foreleg wrapped around it. "I found this! I think I know how to play it too. Seen it once before."

For the moment, Klaven had a silent crowd of two as they both observed. The first board was placed down right where he was first seen coming back. It lied at a slight angle upwards. As he kept the other board holstered in his arcane grip and started to walk in the opposite direction of the placed board, Faltic tried to conceal his growing interest with the obvious question. "So, how do you play?"

"Simple." Upon reaching a certain unknown distance from the already grounded board, the floating board came to rest facing head on to its twin. "So, you stand next to each other at one board, and you throw beanbags at the other board for points. If you land one on the board, it's one point. If you get one in the hole, it's three. If, say, I land three on the board and my opponent lands two, I get one point, since you can cancel each other out. Then you go over to the other side and repeat. First to twenty one wins."

Now was Restel's turn to speak up. "Where's the little bean bags then?"

"Had them in here." From inside the tent, eight small, square shaped beanbags levitated over to rest on the flat surface of the wooden board Klaven stood next to. Once the enveloped color of green faded from their silhouette, it was seen that four were red, and four were blue.

Restel leaned towards Faltic, nudging his arm. "We could play this with any one of his leg holes huh." Immediately, Faltic started to snort a laugh, and abruptly tried to stop it with holding his leg up to his mouth. It only muffled the sounds of trying to pull his composure back into place. 

"So which two of us are playing if it's only two player?" Restel asked, a lingering smile on his face.

"Good question. Faltic?"

Doing a better job than Restel at keeping his smile down, Faltic avoided eye contact with Klaven. "Oh, no I'll play the winner. You two go first." Klaven's soon to be cornhole adversary eagerly jumped the opportunity, leaving Faltic alone in being the only one seated. 

Amongst the chatter of the two talking about rules and how to play, Faltic's mind regressed to an earlier thought. It's eased down a little. Not such a bad time to ask. Again, about where exactly, and also what exactly, Restel and Klaven were doing during the invasion. The only prior interaction to intervention was staking out within the forests that rest beneath the looming city. A very brief interaction at that.

Thump.

"Damn, missed." Restel proclaimed.

Thwip.

"One for me!" Restel stared for a moment at Klaven's one red bag on the board, and his blue one on the ground. Restel gave it another shot-

Thump. 

"Just short."

... A short pause, before-

Skshh... Followed by a dull thud.

"Ugh, slid off. Close though." Klaven said sadly.

Faltic was hardly watching, yet his ears flicked at attention to every sound the beanbags made upon contact.

Thwip!

"Hah! One for me!" Restel said excitedly.

"Zero, so far. I have one on, you have one on. So far they cancel out." Klaven explained.

Faltic finally turned his head towards the game. Two blue and one red beanbag lie on the ground, one of each color sat on the board.

Thunk.

"Straight in, three!" Klaven happily announced it to Restel. 

"Ah get over yourself, watch this."

...Thump.

Klaven's chuckling followed after Restel's toss fell nowhere near the board. 

Thwip!

"That's on, and makes it four to zero, Restel."

"Don't get too cocky, it's still early. I think I'm getting the hang of it."

As soon as the cornhole duo reached the other board, Faltic moved to the end of his log seat closer to the game, and let his mind speak for a moment. "Hey, Restel?"

During collecting his blue colored bags, Restel's head and ears perked up towards the questioning voice calling his name. "What's up?"

"Where were you during the invasion? I never really saw you after the forest, and I don't know why I never asked. What went down?"

Klaven, having already collected his red beanbags, paused for a moment and eyed his opponent. 

"Uh, huh. Right, I never did see you after we went in I guess. If you want to know, I'll tell you. Even while I make a comeback here." Restel was still eyeing down the board in front of him as he spoke, and tossed his next beanbag.

...Thump. "Dammit!"