//------------------------------// // 25 - The Dark Forest // Story: The Black Between the Stars // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// It was a thin and reedy yet also somehow raspy voice, partially assembled from semirandom grunts and clicks and buzzes and other sounds no pony could make. But it was Ponish. The changeling was speaking perfectly understandable Ponish. “You’re…” the changeling whispered. “You’re all… I’m sorry.” It blocked its face with a leg and made little croaking sounds, sobs from a creature that might not be biologically capable of sobbing. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry-” As the changeling babbled, Applejack and Spitfire exchanged glances. Spitfire looked a bit red, but set her jaw. Just because Twilight was right on one topic didn’t mean she was right about everything. “-I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m-” “Hey,” Twilight said softly. She stooped down next to it, throwing a leg over what looked like its withers. Even next to a barely-equinoid alien, the action looked natural on her. “It’s okay. You didn’t know. You couldn’t know. Biologically, I mean.” Pat pat. “You couldn’t know.” The changeling didn’t try to pull away, but it didn’t return the gesture, either. “I’m sorry,” it mumbled one last time. “Take your time,” Twilight said, running her leg up and down its back. Silence. Twilight sat next to the changeling, letting it stew. Spitfire and the guards fidgeted with their guns, but they didn’t look ready to shoot. Applejack still couldn’t believe this was all happening. All this time, she’d figured she was grasping at straws, and suddenly, those straws held her. Would it be enough, though? It wasn’t easy to avoid pushing the changeling for more, but she managed. Twilight knew what to do. Or at least, she was better at this than Applejack. Suddenly the changeling rubbed its head. “It’s so lonely in here, without the Swarm. How do you stand it?” “We’ve never known anything else,” said Twilight. “We’re always alone in our own heads.” The changeling blinked as it looked at Twilight. It tilted its head. “Why didn’t I know you were you before? How come I-” Its eyes suddenly grew huge. “Oh, no…” Its voice dropped with each word. “No, no, no, no, no…” As if overcome with grief, it hunched forward, hanging its head in its hoof-equivalents. “We didn’t… All of them, they’re… Why did we kill them?” “You tell me,” grunted Spitfire. Twilight shot her a glare, but Spitfire forged on. “You’re the ones that killed them. Why did you do it?” “Not you,” whispered the changeling. “Not here. All the other creatures.” Spitfire rolled her eyes, but Applejack caught Twilight’s wings tensing up, just a little. “Others?” Twilight asked. “In the other systems,” said the changeling. The atmosphere immediately turned frigid and Applejack suddenly felt very, very small. The changeling couldn’t be talking about what she thought it was… could it? That was too… No. It couldn’t. Right? “Other- systems,” Twilight said slowly. “Solar systems?” “We killed them all,” moaned the changeling. “The Queen told us to. We said they were dangerous.” “Are you talking about alien civilizations?” Twilight whispered, aghast. “Yes.” The silence was oppressive. Twilight stumbled back, landing on her rump, staring off into the middle distance. “We’ve killed dozens of them,” the changeling said quietly. Applejack knew, logically, that this shouldn’t affect her. She didn’t know anything about aliens, not until a few hours ago. But just the idea of so many… peoples out there — maybe like Equus, maybe not — just… dying when changelings got into them… She had to put a hoof on her chest and force herself to take long, deep breaths. She’d thought so many ponies had died on Golden Oaks, but it was just part of one headstone in a massive cemetery. And if they didn’t stop the changelings here, the rest of that headstone would soon be carved. “Frak this,” Spitfire muttered. She raised her gun. “Step aside, Princess, I’m-” Twilight snapped back to lucidity in an instant. “No,” she said firmly. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. “I’m not done yet.” “He’s committed galactic genocide dozens of times over,” Spitfire snapped. “He said so himself.” “So?” Twilight and Spitfire glared at each other. No magic was flying, but Applejack flinched at the tension between them. Spitfire blinked first; she took a step back and grunted something that might’ve been, “Fine.” But she didn’t lower her gun. “She’s right,” said the changeling. “I- I don’t deserve to-” “I don’t care,” Twilight said. “Even if the universe is cold, I won’t be.” “So why d’you do it?” asked Trixie. Everyone jumped and whirled around. Trixie had wiggled her way into the ring of guards and was on her knees, looking at the changeling with far too much interest for Applejack’s liking. When everyone stared at her, Trixie gave them all — individually, personally — bland looks of defiance. “You’re all going to dance around it,” she said defensively. “Trixie has never been one for dancing.” Her brow furrowed in anger, Twilight opened her mouth, paused, and grimaced as if in acknowledgement. (Trixie smirked at that.) Reluctantly, Twilight turned back to the changeling. “So… why? What do you get out of that sort of destruction?” The changeling pushed itself up on quivering legs. “It’s the only way to guarantee safety for the Swarm,” it said. “How?” “It’s…How do I put this…” Taking a deep breath, the changeling said, “Imagine you’re in a dark forest. It’s filled with creatures that might be hostile to you. Or maybe not. You don’t know. No matter what you meet, there’s a chance that it will want to destroy you. You don’t want to risk that. A-at least, the Queen didn’t. So you destroy it, as soon as possible, as completely as possible. You don’t want to leave behind anything that can hurt you. Everything must go, no matter what. To stay completely safe, you absolutely must kill everything you find.” The changeling took a deep breath. “And according to the Queen, everything else in the universe is thinking the same thing. Strike first. Hit it before it can hit you. Destroy it. And you’ll be safe.” It looked up at the ponies. “Those creatures are civilizations. I- We- It- They- Whenever the Swarm discovers a civilization, it destroys it in a preemptive strike. They- We’ve been across the galaxy, snuffing out world after world, just in case.” He looked out the window, at the green and blue marble far, far below. “There’s nothing special about Equus. It was just the next stop on our list.” Applejack followed the changeling’s gaze to Equus, then to the starfield beyond. Twilight had sometimes talked about contacting alien races — it was virtually certain they’d exist, given the size of the universe — but it was always in the context of possible alliances (or “political friendships”). She couldn’t imagine the default response to anything alive being, “It might hurt us. It needs to die.” Spitfire was the hostile one in this group and she was still holding back. So to have one’s entire existence be centered around that… Was the universe such a hostile place? But Twilight had said changelings were incapable of empathy. No mirror neurons. They couldn’t be anything else. Maybe other aliens did have those neurons and could ally with ponies. Maybe changelings were just an unlucky roll of the dice. Well. That was for another time. This one changeling was capable of empathy, anyway. “And I…” The changeling clenched its eyes shut and rubbed its head, rocking back and forth. “I never thought, never imagined… I’ve killed s-so m-many… I n-never thought they could th-think, they were just supposed to be f-food… Why can’t I do that anymore? You… You’re all people. You… You’re all so… nice.” “You’ve had guns pointed at you this entire time,” Trixie said incredulously. “And they haven’t been fired!” said the changeling. “Like, you.” He pointed a shaking hoof-thing at Spitfire. “You you you. You’re angry. Even I can tell that. You probably hate me. And you haven’t shot me yet!” “Princess’s orders,” grunted Spitfire. “And that’s all it takes?” asked the changeling. “We killed everyone in this station, and one person asking nicely is enough to not shoot me?” Two of the guards exchanged glances. Spitfire coughed, rubbed one leg against another, and looked away. “It’s… not that simple…” she mumbled lamely. “But the Swarm always thought other species would attack us just because we were fighting for resources! And you- Compared to what I thought you’d be, yes, this is nice.” Spitfire eyed the changeling for a little bit longer. Then she sighed. “Stow your weapons, mares. It’s not dangerous.” There was a brief pause before all of the guards slowly, cautiously lowered their guns. They trailed away from the area, one by one. Twilight flashed Spitfire a winning smile, but Spitfire just snorted, dropped onto her rump, and stared at the changeling. “What happened to you is… complicated,” Twilight said to the changeling. “Changelings — that’s what we call your species — you don’t have… these things called mirror neurons, which means you can’t empathize with anyone else.” The changeling tilted its head. It was a remarkably ponylike expression, Applejack thought. “Em-pa-thize?” “Understand the feelings of another,” Twilight said without missing a beat. Her voice was picking up speed; as a pony explaining things to a new friend, she was in her element. “But we were able to give you mirror neurons by…” For an answer to a simple question, Twilight went on for a remarkably long time, going into far more detail than was necessary. Applejack was sure she might have a degree in neuroscience by the time it was done, with plenty of talk of magical bonding and memory transfer and skills transfer (“-which is probably why you can already speak Ponish!-”). As she went on, more and more ponies filtered away, until she was left with only Applejack and Trixie, and Trixie didn’t look particularly invested. The changeling, on the other hoof, was eating it up. Finally, Twilight was able to pull herself back to the main point. “…so since you have a hive mind,” Twilight said, “we were hoping that once one changeling learned empathy, the others would, too. So… any luck?” Applejack caught herself holding her breath. This was it. This was everything she’d worked for. Hopefully… But the changeling folded its ears back and looked away. “I’m… not part of the Swarm anymore,” it said. “The Queen cut me off when I… started understanding.” Twilight’s wings sprang open and she very nearly shot upwards into a standing position. “Cut you off?” she yelled. “You’re not a part of the hive mind anymore?” The changeling shook its head and Twilight said something uncouth. “Sorry,” the changeling mumbled. “I wish I could do more.” Applejack groaned and fell over onto her back. It wasn’t really that much of a surprise, if she was being honest, just… She’d hoped for so much more. She just wanted to be… done with all of this. Done, safe, secure, asleep. Every time, every time she got near her goal, the universe threw up another hurdle for her to jump. She was just about ready to gather every shotgun shell she could find in the cargo bay, stuff them all into a bag, and scour every single cubic millimeter of Golden Oaks until she was sure that there wasn’t a single changeling alive on it. By now, spite at the universe was her main source of energy. But to her surprise, Trixie didn’t seem all that upset. Maybe she was just super-chill about everything. “Oh, we’ll find another way,” she scoffed. “Or maybe we won’t and we’re all going to die up here.” (Why was she so dang chipper?) “But until then…” She trotted over to the changeling and sat down next to it. “I have some questions for you,” she said. “Uh…” The changeling looked up and down at Trixie. “Um, okay, if it’ll help you…” “How do you change shape?” Trixie asked. (Twilight perked up immediately and leaned forward intently.) “The little… squirmy ones, Trixie means. This big?” She held up her hooves. “Heh. Um. Those.” The changeling licked its lips. Why did it have a tongue, anyway? “That’s, uh, those… parts of us- of me- of us use thaumatic energies to… project the… gestalt of nearby objects to hide.” Pause. “I. I think. Language is…” It rubbed its head. “Still a bit funny for me.” “Thaumatic energies? You use magic to change shape?” asked Twilight. She sounded far more curious than Applejack was comfortable with her being. “I… think ‘magic’ is the right word,” said the changeling. “It… It’s how I do… this.” There was a burst of blue light, and suddenly there were two Twilights looking at each other. Applejack jumped in surprise and nearly raised her gun, while Trixie squeaked and shuffled back on her rump. The real Twilight, though, flared her wings slightly and peered at her double the same way one would to closely examine a priceless work of art. The changeling leaned back. “The, the Queen wanted to… keep a close eye on you all,” it said nervously. “And keep you — you you-” It pointed at Twilight. “-from being found. And this is, it’s all magic.” “In-ter-es-ting,” enunciated Twilight. She reached out a hoof to touch the changeling’s wings, but it shied away. “It’s not any way we’ve used it… I don’t think so, anyway.” “If that’s what you call it, we use magic for a lot of things,” said the changeling snippily, dropping Twilight’s shape. For the first time, it displayed an emotion rather than apology or fear: irritation, like this should be obvious. “Eating, holding our bodies together, living… We can travel between star systems without spaceships. How do you think we survived?” “Some as-yet-to-be-identified physical process?” asked Twilight rhetorically. “I’m actually surprised you can use magic at all, since-” Suddenly, her eyes went wide and she clamped her wings tightly at her sides. Her lips were moving, but she wasn’t making a sound. Applejack awkwardly cleared her throat. “Uh, Twi?” But Twilight waved her down as her ears twitched. “She’s like that,” muttered the changeling. “How do I know she’s like that?” “ ’Cause I know she’s like that, I guess,” grunted Applejack. “I was the one who-” “-donated the mirror neurons, yeah,” muttered the changeling. Then it twitched. “How do I know that?” Applejack gave the changeling a Look. “…Right.” “So let me get this straight,” Twilight said suddenly. “Changelings need magic to live?” Her voice was low, thoughtful, somehow devious. The changeling must’ve noticed. “I, I think so,” it said, shuffling back from Twilight. “I, the Queen uses magic to form us into new shapes as needed, and-” Twilight suddenly leaned in and jabbed her glowing horn at the changeling. It yelped and pulled away. “What was that?” it squawked, shivering. One of its legs quickly swelled and shrank, like a balloon getting partially inflated and deflated. “What are you doing?” But Twilight was barely listening. Her eyes were half-closed and she was looking at nothing as she rambled in scientific-sounding terms. “-curl of the thaums is negative… But if they run along a four-brane… And hold enough caloric to-” The changeling gave Applejack a Look, and even on that nonequine face, she knew what it meant. “Musta scanned ya or somethin’,” she said. “She’s big on science and whatnot. She’d pr’y be workin’ up here herself, ’cept she’s a princess, and-” Suddenly, Twilight’s eyes went wide as her mouth formed a tiny “O” in surprise. Then she whirled on Applejack, a huge, aggressive grin plastered on her face. “You still have that nullwave grenade, right? The one Lightning dropped? Right before the GUTS?” “Uh, I…” She remembered that? Applejack had thought she’d been half-dead. (Maybe she had been and good memory was an alicorn thing.) “Yeah, I… think so.” She pulled the largish ball from her pocket and held it out for Twilight. “Why? What d’you want with-” Without a word, Twilight snatched the grenade from Applejack’s hooves and began fiddling with the fittings around it. “So, changeling. You don’t have a name, right?” “I- We- I didn’t need one in the Swarm,” the changeling said. A small metal panel popped from the grenade and fell to the ground. “Do you want one?” “Would it help? …That’s not sarcasm, I really don’t know.” “Probably.” Another panel fell. “It’d give ponies something to think of you as besides ‘the changeling’.” (Applejack squirmed slightly. Nobody seemed to notice.) “Well… Okay.” The changeling’s wings buzzed. “I don’t know what sort of a name I want, though…” “Hmm… How about Thorax?” Twilight suggested. “In ponies, the thorax holds the heart. You’ve got heart, now, something other changelings don’t have.” The changeling looked at Applejack. It took her a moment to realize it was looking for approval. “Sounds fine,” she said quickly. “Kinda odd, but it ain’t that odd.” “Or, if you prefer,” Trixie said, “it’s not odd, it’s special. ‘Trixie’ is not an odd name, ‘Trixie’ is a special name. Just like Trixie herself.” The changeling’s ear-fin-things twitched back and forth. “It does sound nice,” it said wistfully. A pause, then it nodded. “Okay. I’m Thorax.” Twilight carefully peeled away another set of panels from the grenade. “Glad to hear it, Thorax.” As the newly-christened Thorax preened, Applejack leaned over to investigate the grenade. It was a muddled mass of wires, tiny circuit boards, and devices she couldn’t make out. “So how’s it comin’, Twi?” Whatever “it” was. “Effh. Slowly,” Twilight said. Her voice dropped to an irate mutter as she delicately extracted some wires. “I wanted to see it.” Her horn started flickering in ways Applejack had never seen before and magic ran up and down each and every component. “I asked if I could see it. But they’re all like, ‘Noooooooooooo, it’s too sensitive, it’s too secret…’” She pulled out a small gyroscope-looking device from the grenade and squinted at it. “I’m a princess! I think I have access to state secrets! And this isn’t even a state secret!” Her magic fluttered as it danced across the gyroscope and she smirked briefly. “So now I’ve got to figure all of this out from the ground up, and-” She stopped, staring at one particular part of the grenade. To Applejack, it looked nearly the same as any other. Twilight, however, whispered, “Oh. Oh my. Oh, yessss…” Applejack had lived on Golden Oaks to recognize a pony falling into mad-scientist-hood when she saw it. It was a lot of little things: slightly wider or narrower eyes than usual, an almost-grin, little twitches everywhere, audible breathing. Twilight had all of those and more; she was deep in its throes. But given the situation, that might not be such a bad thing. “What’d you find?” she asked. Twilight turned to Applejack, smiling widely enough to swallow a foal whole. “I know how to get rid of the changelings.”