I woke up in a white room, hooked up to various machines which had functions unknown to me. The only one which I could infer the purpose of was a machine that had a green, jagged line that ran along it in rhythm with my heartbeat. It was definitely used for tracking my heart rate.
My head was pounding intensely, as if I had been violently drugged before being knocked out. In an attempt to make myself concentrate on something other than the headache, I began to piece the events of the previous night in my head. I felt a little dumb for having picked up Big Mac and tried to save him. I didn't think he was alive; all life had left his eyes. Although, I wasn't one to tell; I couldn't trace ponies' spiritual essences anymore.
I tried to sit up, but quite a few tubes and needles tugged me back. I grunted a little in pain, not having realized that I had a bunch of needles inside of my skin. The thought disgusted me, and I whimpered, not caring for my pride at the moment. I decided to lay back again and just wait for somepony to come along.
After about two hours a pony with a white coat came in with a clipboard and a pencil. After eyeing me for a second he smiled and said, "You seem to be awake for real this time. Good to see you've finally woken up."
"How long was I out?" I cocked my head a little.
"You've been in a coma for about five months." I gasped, not even intending for a dramatic effect. How could I have been out for a that long? It felt like only the day before that I had been attacked by Big Macintosh. In fact, the Changeling didn't even attack me at all. How could I have been put into a coma if I had received no damage whatsoever?
"I know it's quite a surprise, and we're not quite sure how it happened either. We found you in an alleyway with a stallion on your back, both of you out cold."
I cringed at how awkward that sounded.
He continued, "The stallion is still in a coma, but he's alive. You're both lucky somepony found you before you both...well, died."
The news of Big Macintosh's survival had come as a surprise. I was certain that he had died, and that my attempt at bringing him to the hospital had been for naught. It was a huge relief to know that he was alive, but there was still something else on my mind...
"How long do I have to stay here?" I asked. Crossing my hooves, I wished to myself that I could leave soon enough.
"Two weeks, if you're lucky." Buck. I lay back against the bed again and sighed. Two weeks was a long time...although, it was nothing compared to the five months I was out. I figured that my forge could have been rebuilt by then if I had paid the bits. It would take a long time before I could start forging again. Thinking about that only deepened my depression, so I pushed it out of my mind and replaced it with a different thought.
"I had a book with me when I passed out. Is that still here, by any chance?"
The doctor shook his head, "No, a lavender mare came in about a week after you were found and insisted on taking it home with her. She somehow convinced us, and now she has the book. Do you know her?"
Dammit, Twilight!
"Yeah, I know her," I sighed and rolled my eyes. I wasn't too worried that she would translate anything, though. Chiddish was an extremely complicated language, and its very grammar would change between sentences. On top of that, it was impossible to spell the language phonetically as it used multiple sounds that were not used in Braytish and contained almost no vowels. It still bothered me that she had the book, though; it would take quite a bit of convincing on my part for her to give up the book again, especially considering I had been so violent the last time. Hopefully she wasn't too mad about that...
Wait a second. What the hay was wrong with my life? I had been put in a string of extremely unexpected and overly dark events in the past few weeks before the incident with Big Macintosh. What was going on? Did that Changeling have something to do with it?
Was he even really a Changeling at all?
The doctor's voice broke through my thoughts, "We'll be checking in on you once every day for the next three days, and then once every two days for the rest of your stay here. You will be unable to receive any visitors during your stay here due to hospital policy, unfortunately." He then turned around and left the room, closing the door behind him.
I did not look forward to the next few weeks.
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Squeak, tok, tok, squeak, tok, tok, squeak, tok, tok, tok...
I was getting accustomed to hearing the ball hit my hoof, then the wall, then the floor, my hoof again, and so on. At first I was unsettled by the fact that my hoof made a strange squeaking sound every time it hit something, but eventually I got used to it and found the sound slightly humorous. There was a strange enjoyment in hitting that ball over and over again; I had probably been doing it for hours. Eventually, though, the ball had bounced off the wall and onto the floor, not reaching my hoof. Feeling too lazy to use magic and bring it back to me, I just lay back and tried to fall asleep.
Sleep never came, and when I snapped my eyes back open I saw it was still noon. I turned over with a groan, bored to death. The IV needles, as I learned they were called, had been removed within a week of my waking up. The doctor said I was recovering much, much faster than any other pony he had ever seen before.
I should have felt proud, but in truth it bothered me more than anything. Changelings had an abnormally quick healing rate, among the fastest in existence. Maybe the lines between my being as a pony and a Changeling were beginning to blur?
Great, another unpleasant thought. Totally what I needed to help my mood. With another groan, I turned over and lay on my back again. The Hospital was easily the most boring place in existence, and their food certainly didn't help.
"Hello, Blacksmith. How are you doing today?" Right on cue, a nurse came in with a tray of a bland meal of bean stew on her back.
"Same as usual. Seriously, how much longer do I have to stay here?" I asked as I reached over and grabbed the tray from her back, eliciting a shudder from her as my hooves brushed against her back. The doctor had strictly forbidden me from using magic while I was recovering, so whenever any of the staff was around I made sure not to use any.
The problem with that was Nurse Redheart, who seemed to have a particular fondness for me. It seemed she purposefully positioned herself so I'd graze across her every time I took something from her. It's not that I disliked her or anything. In fact, she was kinda cute. I still preferred Vinyl, though, and I intended to stay a one-mare stallion until I learned whether or not Vinyl felt the same about me as I did about her. Forgive me for having old-fashioned views on romance.
Before I knew it, I was daydreaming about the rave mare.
"Blacksmith? Are you alright? I don't think you heard my answer." Redheart looked at me with her head cocked slightly to the side. I snapped myself out of it and apologized.
"Sorry, I zoned out a bit. It happens to me sometimes, I have attention deficities or whatever they're called..." I grinned sheepishly while Nurse Redheart giggled.
"Oh, it's fine," she said as she watched me eat, "You should be clear to leave soon enough. Probably within five days." Five days seemed like a long time to me, but it wasn't really the end of the world. I'd be out of there soon enough if I didn't really think about it. I grunted in consent as I kept eating the bland meal, finishing and putting it on the tray next to my bed. Thank Chrysalis that there was a glass of water nearby to wash the taste down.
"Is there any reason why I can't be visited? I'm pretty sure this Hospital's never had that policy as far as I've heard."
Redheart cocked her head at my statement, "What kind of pony learns things about hospitals they've never been to?" she shook her head, "No matter. I'll leave you here now. I'll be back soon..." She winked at me before walking out of the room with a swish of her tail.
Damn, that flank...stop it brain.
I was almost giddy with excitement at the news that I'd be leaving relatively soon. Five days wasn't the end of the world. Only about 120 hours, which also can be interpreted as 7200 minutes, or 432000 seconds. No time at all.
"Urgh, I feel like I'm going to wait forever," I groaned, falling back in defeat. It would feel like ages before I could leave this gods-damned hospital.
"Really, I think you should consider it more of a blessing. Not everypony gets through a coma and lives to tell the tale." I almost whiplashed as I stumbled a bit and snapped my head towards the sound.
Sitting next to my bed was a changeling, trimming his hooves with a scalpel he must have gotten from the surgical tray in the far corner.
"You're acting surprised to see me. Seriously, after I threw you and that huge redneck into a coma you don't recognize me?" He let out a melodramatic sigh, "I'm so hurt. Especially since I thought you'd recognize this face pretty well." He turned his head to face me. At first, I didn't catch his meaning, but upon closer inspection of his face I could see just how easily I should have recognized him.
"Surprised to see your own body talking to you?" He said as he flashed a toothy smile, "I personally like it, you were a very characteristic changeling, if I do say so myself."
It was indeed my old body that he was in possession of. I had seen my reflection enough to recognize the oversized right canine and the scar that trailed down his tongue as he spoke.
Until then I had never really thought about what I looked like when I was a changeling. We had no sense of individuality; appearance meant nothing. You were who you were; nothing changed that, not even what you looked like.
I could barely string words into a sentence, "But how? I polymorphed, I couldn't possibly have left behind my old body for some crazy spirit to take over, I-"
The changeling put up a hoof to silence me, "Wrong. I'm not a spirit, and you weren't polymorphed. We merely switched bodies."
Completely dumbfounded, I asked for him to elaborate. He assented by telling me his life story.
"My original form was that of a unicorn, like you are now. My parents always said I was a strapping young colt, powerful both in mind and body. I was more physically powerful than a normal unicorn, and as an added bonus I had a strange knack for the more arcane form of unicorn magic.
I was more interested in Necromancy and Alchemic Transmutation, unlike other colts my age who wanted to learn about battle spells. My interest for transforming lead into gold and bringing back the dead drove off quite a few of my peers, and when I turned eighteen I was sent off by my parents."
He then looked straight at me, "The most humiliating part of my banishment was that I still had a blank flank.
No cutie mark. Nothing to signify my love for the arcane. I found myself a nice cave to dwell in, and continued my studies. Fortunately, I had brought along all of my belongings, which included my entire library which included forgotten tomes of lore and journals I had kept over my years of studies."
His tone of voice heightened, and he began acting agitated, "I had made a grave mistake though. Instead of continuing my research of how to turn lead into more refined metals and changing the very laws of our biology, I sought out to transform myself. I sought to become the most powerful of ponies; an Alicorn. I wanted to change myself into a deity, no longer desiring to be stuck as a simple unicorn. I kept studying, and after five more years I found out a way to polymorph myself--but I should have waited longer. I was too impatient. On my twenty-third birthday, all my preparations were complete. The circles were drawn, the elixirs consumed, the spells prepared."
He sighed, "I should have studied longer. Even if I was forty when I finally got it right, it would have been all worth it. My impatience and immaturity led me to cast the spell too soon. I did not know enough about pony transmutation.
Yes, the spell that transformed me was meant to be a polymorph spell. However, instead it did not create a new body for me like I wanted it to. It transferred my body over to a different soul, swapping my own body with theirs."
His face deathly close, I could smell his rotten breath as pointed a hoof at me, "We swapped bodies because of my blundering in a spell that was meant to change my life for the better. It seems, though, that my spell did manage to get me my cutie mark at last..."
I sat there, bewildered at his revelation. Was my change by accident? Was my whole transformation pure chance and not a surge of my own power that made me turn into a pony? I started trembling, my lip quivering as I tried to piece his story together. Would he kill me to take his body back?
"Now, don't take this the wrong way. I certainly don't mean to be much of a pain in the ass," he smiled widely, "In fact, if anything I'm grateful for this body! The ability to change into anypony I want is glorious!"
"So why are you telling me all of this? Why did you attack us in the alleyway if you're not my enemy?" I asked. To this, he leaned back with a serious expression replacing his once maniacal grin.
"The spell is wearing off. You feel it too, don't you? The lines between pony and changeling are blurring for both of us. The fact that you decided to carry that stallion was no mere coincidence. You knew he was still alive. Deep within you, that part of you that is becoming more and more like your old self has started acting up," he looked out the window, a solemn look in his eyes, "The same is happening for me, too. I need more and more love to satisfy my thirsts, and it is becoming harder and harder to get a hold of. I don't want to have to kill anypony. I want to stay like this. In a way, my spell gave me exactly what I wanted. I have become something different; something more, if you can call it that. Really, my only reason for attacking you was to make sure you were isolated in a hospital room. It would make speaking to you easier. You never know who would listen in."
"So what do we do to solve this?"
"It's something a bit complicated. Our souls are still somewhat bound together for the spell. My assumption is that this will not be permanent, and therefore my solution will most likely not be in effect too long..."
"Just cut to the chase." I asked, irritated at his extending of his phrases. I had been transformed into a unicorn, but that did not mean my patience had changed. Besides, I did not know if I could trust this changeling yet. I took everything he had said until then with a grain of salt, in fact.
"I think that I'll have to feed off of your love for Vinyl Scratch."
"...what."
He groaned, "You heard me, lovebird, I'm going to feed off of your love for Vinyl Scratch."
"You mean you're going to sap all of my feelings for her?" I was shocked at his proposition. How could I completely abandon the mare I loved just to save myself?
"No, not all," he clarified, "I'm going to sap you little by little, at intervals, letting your emotions come back naturally. For now I only need to feed once every week or so, and if I drain half of your love for her then I should be satiated for about that long. It'll take six days for you to replenish fully, if I'm correct."
"Alright, awesome, now get out of my room before-" He shoved a hoof in my mouth to keep me from talking. It tasted like bugs.
"I'm not done yet. This will let me survive long enough so the spell can be complete. So long as you stay completely a pony and I stay completely a changeling while we connect our souls, we will eventually be able to disconnect from each other."
I pushed his hoof out of my mouth, "That makes no sense."
"Supernatural physics make no sense in general. Magic is something supernatural, it's not something we can predict. In fact, as far as we know it's sentient."
"That's actually kind of interesting. So does that mean you can leave now?"
He rolled his eyes, "One more thing I have to say. Your love for Vinyl is the only thing that can ensure success in what we're doing. Therefore, openly admitting your feelings to her might ruin the relationship between the two of you if she doesn't feel the same way."
"Wouldn't you be able to tell if she feels the same way about me, though?"
He shook his head, "No, unfortunately. My powers as a Changeling aren't in full effect yet. It'll take a while until I can know for sure."
Not knowing a lot about mares at the time, I decided to take his word for it and nodded. He clapped his hooves together and smiled.
"Wonderful! Looks like we have a deal then. Don't worry, I'll only be sapping you once a week and you probably won't notice when it happens," he proceeded to hold out his hoof, "I don't think I caught your name, by the way."
I reached out and we shook, "My name's Blacksmith."
The changeling smiled before saying, "It's great to meet you, Blacksmith. You can call me Zharko."
I felt a twinge in my stomach as I shook hooves with him. I slowly felt myself become tired and grumpy as he did what I assumed to be draining my love. I started to feel dizzy as my heart rate monitor started to slow down. Apparently he had lied when he said I wouldn't notice the draining.
I realized then that as long as Zharko was around, life in Ponyville was going to take a turn for the worse.