//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Wonderbox // by GaPJaxie //------------------------------// Once, there was a pony named Wild Ace, who knew a changeling named Avery. For all his life, Wild Ace had been warned that changelings were monsters, but Avery, he thought, was his friend. Until the day she dug up the corpse of his wife. Until the day she cut the skin off a dead mare’s body and layered it over her own shell. Until the day he saw her wear a pony’s face as a mask. It was evening in the summer. The sun was low in the sky, but the world was still bright. Wild Ace was returning from work, and thought nothing of the fact that his front door was unlocked. He wasn’t in the habit of locking it. But when the door swung open, he smelled orange, cinnamon, and cherry. He smelled hot cross buns, just the way his wife used to make them. The floor was swept. Soft music was playing from somewhere. And there she was. Lounged over the couch, waiting for him. She looked just the way he remembered her. Every detail of her body was right, coat and tail and hooves and flank and back and wings. But her face; her face was the worst. Because it was perfect, except for her eyes. The mask didn’t come with eyes. If Wild Ace had been a dumber pony he might have been confused, wondered what was happening. If he was a better liar, he might have kept the expression of horror and revulsion off his face. But he had the misfortune to be both clever and honest. In the space of a second, one tick of the mantlepiece clock, Avery’s plans unraveled. And from Wild’s face, she knew it. “No no, no, no, no,” Avery said, voice racing as she rose from the couch, scrambling, nearly running over to Wild Ace. She tried to drape her wings around him, but they weren’t her wings, they were his wife’s wings, his beautiful wife’s severed wings she’d sawed off a body and stuck to her shoulders. He wrenched away from her touch like it burned. “Get away from me.” But she didn’t hear him. “No, no. Wild Ace. It’s fine, see? See? I’m getting the hang of it.”  She ran a hoof over the skin she’d stolen, the white coat, the cutie mark depicting two wings and a red cross. “It’s perfect. It’s perfect. It’s a perfect disguise. My eyes aren’t mismatched, and my mane and tail are right. And I cooked! I cook just like you like. You can eat buns and tell me about your day.” “This is sick.” Wild Ace felt he might actually puke, and he couldn’t keep it out of his voice. “Turn back. Turn into yourself right now.” “Just give it a try.” Her voice was pleading, but she continued to advance on him, pushing him out his door and into the dusty yard. “Have a glass of wine. Have six. Snuggle up. You’ll remember what it’s like to have somepony warm against you. I could…” Her quick speech momentarily halted, like the words were stuck in her throat. It passed quickly. “I could do whatever you want. I’ll do anything, Ace. Just say the mare you want and say what you want to do to her and I’m there.” This had the opposite of the intended effect. Wild Ace looked away, bile rising in his throat. “Get out. Go. You’re not welcome here.” “Please, Ace.” She laid hooves upon him, and when he tried to wrench himself away, she held him tight. Though she was the smaller of the two, her grip was startlingly strong. “Please love me. I’m starving to death.” “Love isn’t something you can make happen,” Wild Ace snapped. “You can’t force it.” “Yes I can!” she bellowed back at him, her voice thick, like she might cry at any moment. “Yes I can. I like you, and I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if you make me.” Wild Ace was an earth pony, a member of the Royal Guard, and a stallion who enjoyed lifting weights. It was no challenge for him to shove one emaciated changeling off him. She flew backwards, landing in the dirt outside his door. The rocks and trees around him turned into her brothers and sisters. One kicked him in the knee, and the joint bent the wrong way. Four of them wrestled him to the ground, and by the time Avery got back to her hooves, he was pinned and helpless. Her eyes flicked to his mangled leg, to his pained expression. She put a hoof on his withers. “Please,” she begged. “Let me take you inside, and take care of you. I’ll fix up that leg. I can be… I can be sweet, and kind, and help you. And then you can be grateful. And you can love me.” Through the haze of pain, Wild Ace put something together. “That’s it. That was always it, wasn’t it? You never really cared.” “I did. I saved you because I like you,” Avery said. “Please. Please. I don’t want to be a monster.” And he believed her. But she was. “Consider the rotation of a rigid body about a fixed axis AA’. We can write a velocity vector…” Chalk clicked on a chalkboard. “V equals dr/dt which is tangent to the path with magnitude v equals ds/dt. Now, can anyone tell me the magnitude of Δs?” Chalk clicked twice, as something on the board was emphasized with two taps. Avery’s hand went up. “Δs equals (r sin (ɸ)) ΔΘ.” “Correct, but that’s just basic trigonometry. Is there a way we could calculate Δs that uses some of the vector notation we’ve been practicing in the homework?” Again, Avery’s hand went up, but the professor chuckled. “Anyone else?” Avery was human. Over the course of her life, she would be many things: ponies, diamond dogs, dragons, kirin, rocks, trees, but on that day, that particular day, she was human. More than that, she was a student and a good one. She sat in the front row of every lecture hall, studied diligently, and always did her homework before she came to class. People found her easy to like. She never made trouble, never created drama, never started fights. She was often quiet, but when she did speak she was casually witty. Her hobbies were rock climbing, cooking, and Scrabble. She often brought pastries as gifts to study groups. And yet, when the Thursday afternoon lecture for Vector Mechanics for Engineers ended and other students lingered to speak with their friends or classmates, Avery was the first out of the lecture hall. She was a student at North Carolina State University, a sprawling institution of thirty-four thousand students. Her brisk walk back to her dorm brought her past greenery and volleyball courts and students playing frisbee, and she cut through the “brickyard,” that part of campus where it seemed every building and street and wall was made of the same red brick. Many people there liked her, but only four really knew her. Her phone buzzed several times during the walk. She looked down, grimaced, and accelerated her pace. She walked like she was fleeing from a predator and feared the beast realizing she’d detected it; attempting to run without looking like she was running. Her dorm was called Syme. It was one of the smaller residence halls, only three stories and made almost entirely of red brick. Its heavy wooden front door, decades old, had been recently retrofitted with a modern electronic lock and card scanner. She waved her student ID over the suitable pad, an electronic chime sounded, and the door unlocked with a deep metallic thunk. Up the stairs she rushed, to room 302, her room. But when she opened the door and stepped inside, the energy of flight suddenly left her. The handle slipped from her fingers, and the door gently swung shut behind her as she stood in a daze. “You okay?” Avery turned her head to Cassidy, the short dirty-blonde currently sitting on the edge of her bed. “Great, how about you?” Avery replied, her words charming, tone relaxing, a smile reflexively appearing on her face. Cassidy didn’t react. That was her superpower. Not doing things. She was allegedly pre-med, but Avery had never concretely seen her attend class. She was always vaguely around; around the dorm, around campus events, but she never seemed busy with schoolwork. She claimed to get good grades. And she could just ignore things she didn’t think were worth her time, so she went back to her book until Avery decided to answer her question. “I…” Avery dropped her bag next to the dorm room’s little built-in desk. It was a cheap thing, plywood with a faux-hardwood plastic veneer. “My older sister’s getting married.” Her happy-go-lucky charm vanished, and she sounded tired. “My mom texted me the news already, but my sister doesn’t know I know, so she keeps texting to ask when she can call because there’s ‘big news.’” “And?” “And I don’t want to fucking talk to her.” Cassidy was Avery’s roommate, and one of four other people on campus who actually knew her. She was exclusive among that group in that she wasn’t invited. She invited herself. Her silence broke Avery. “Do you not like her?” “I like my sister fine, I just…” Avery let out a long sigh, running a hand back through her hair. She slumped to the edge of her bed, opposite Cassidy’s. “I’m going to have to pretend I give a fuck about bridesmaid’s dresses and flowers and stuff.” Cassidy pondered her roommate’s situation for a few moments before gently suggesting: “You know she might want you to be in the wedding party.” Avery slumped back against the wall and let out a groan like she was in deep, physical pain. Cassidy for her part frowned, and continued her suggestion: “You could tell her your mom already texted.” “Blowing off her wedding announcement seems like kind of a bad-sister thing to do,” Avery raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. “And yes, I know. I know. I should be happy for her. Or excited, or whatever. But I’ve met her boyfriend exactly once, and he left no impression. None.” A sharp hand gesture emphasized the last word. “I don’t remember any of his stories. I don’t know what we talked about. He wasn’t boring, exactly, but like. He’s one of those people that’s vaguely nice, but has no real personality.” “You’ve said that about me.” “You want to marry my sister?” Cassidy went back to her book, and Avery buried her face into her pillow, mock-screaming into the soft material. Still, her roommate said nothing, until finally Avery acknowledged her: “I’m sorry. That was bitchy.” “I’m trying to help, but in the end either you’re calling her or you’re not.” “No no,” Avery let out a long breath through her nose. “I’m calling her, I’m just… working up to it.” “You should ask her how he proposed.” “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Avery’s eyes went up to the ceiling. “I was going to see a movie with Jaya later, probably around six. You want to come?” “Which movie?” “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” Cassidy weighed the matter over, and then answered: “I think I’m free. I’ll let you know?” She always said that -- always referenced unspecified alternate plans. Yet, she always came. Avery had no more proof that Cassidy had other friends than that she attended class. “Sure.” Avery pulled out her phone and rolled off the bed, heading out into the hall as she tapped her sister’s contact info. “Hey,” she said, feigning breathlessness. “Sorry, you got me running across campus, what’s up?” And a moment later: “Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful! Sarah, I’m so happy for you, congratulations!” She made it bubbly and sweet, like the cheap soda from the campus cafeteria. The conversation lasted an hour and a half. For Avery, it was a marathon, requiring the absolute discipline to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She laughed, she smiled, she used the word ‘wonderful’ far too much. She asked about jewelry and flowers, dates and locations, plans for children that frankly she didn’t think her sister was ready for. She put in the work. But in the end, she couldn’t sustain it. She tried to wrap the conversation up, claiming to be busy, and when her sister didn’t take the hint, she said “I love you,” in a way that meant “Goodbye.” With a heavy sigh, she pushed her door open again. Cassidy was still on the edge of the bed with her book, and a large paper-wrapped parcel sat on Avery’s desk. “Well that sucked,” Avery said. Cassidy did not react. “Who left the parcel for me?” “What?” Cassidy looked up from her book. “I said, who left this for me?” She indicated the package on her deck, which had no stamps or post office marks. “I thought you put that there,” Cassidy said, with a shrug. “I didn’t touch it.” “Well, I didn’t,” Avery snapped, curt. “Who brought it in?” “I’ve been sitting here the whole time. Nobody came in.” Avery’s eyes went from her roommate to the package and back. Her lip curled ever so faintly, her brow furrowed, but though her doubt was plain to see, she stopped just short of asking sharper questions. Instead, she stepped up to the desk, put her phone away, and tore open the packaging. Inside was a box. And it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It took her several long moments to realize it was made of glass. The material was so clear, so perfectly transparent, that the filigree within it appeared to float in empty space. Staring at it was like staring into a spider web spun from gold, and the patterns inside went on and on without end. It was so light, so open, loose like the threads of fresh grown cotton, yet the golden threads conspired to conceal what was inside the container, weaving over each other in a protective tapestry. It glowed in the sunlight from their dorm room window, dots of reflected light traveling over Avery’s face. She wasn’t sure how long she stared at it before she heard bedsprings creek, and she reflexively turned to look. Later, she would recall it as the first time she saw genuine emotion on Cassidy’s face, something she was sure wasn’t manufactured. “What is it?” Cassidy asked, looking at the box instead of Avery’s face. “I have no idea.” It was the size of a jewelry box, roughly six inches on the long face and four on the short, barely over an inch in depth. It had four legs on its base, and the shape of a lid on top, but when Avery tried to pull it open, she found the lid wouldn’t budge. A quick inspection of the container with her fingers revealed no seams or hinges. The piece was solid glass. Then she saw the writing on top, pulled into the filigree. She read it aloud: “To whomever opens this box goes the power of every tribe and all the treasures in the world.”