//------------------------------//
// 03 - The Distant Cry 
// Story: The Changeling, The Filly, and The Library 
// by Cxcd 
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Offices were rarely grand. Take Radius’s, for instance. It was small, cramped, had a leaking pipe, and was generally a terrible place to reside in, much less for doing work. The only purpose of having a grand office was to be foreboding for any potential business customers. They would design the office to be scary and large if they thought it might strike a pang of fear through ponies souls. And sometimes, it would work.
But his office wasn’t grand like any businessmare. It wasn’t cramped like any accountants, and it certainly wasn’t a repurposed dining table for the sake of researching Changelings. The room was mostly wooden with two windows streaming late light into his office.
There was a gray earth-pony, wearing in years, sitting on his chair and carefully reading and writing through his teeny glasses. His brown mane was buzz-cut and straight, his eyes weary and golden, his hoof dancing across small boxes.
Then, unceremoniously, a letter was slid directly onto the pencil he was currently holding.
Slowly, he looked up, peeking over the top of his glasses as he met the gaze of a dark-green Earth-pony, standing expectantly, his chest pushed out with pride. This Earth-pony was wearing silver armor, although not shiny and incredibly dented from years of abuse. Not because the pony currently wearing it had waged through battles and come out victorious. Actually, quite the opposite. It was training armor, and the Earth-pony wearing it had failed. Many times. His name was Chloride.
Chloride slowly blinked as the silence between the two ponies stretched on uncomfortably.
“Oh- uh- Another letter from Ponyville, sir!” He said with a thick and slow accent. The general sighed, rubbing his head and sliding the letter to the edge of the table. He maneuvered his hooves underneath the ledge of his desk so when it eventually fell down, it fell directly onto his awaiting hoof. He then bit down on the edge, ripping it open, and reading the contents.
When he was done, he let the letter flutter to the table, sighing out slowly.
“Problem, sir?”
The general gave a quick start, looking up at the new recruit still standing at his desk in an infuriating manner. The general waved his hoof as he fought to find the correct words to describe the letter- especially to somepony as… slow as the stallion standing in front of him.
“It’s a letter from Mayor Mare.” He finally settled on. “A request to dispatch a guard for a standard Changeling procedure.” The general took half a second, reading Chloride in front of him for a good few seconds. Finally, he nodded. “Actually, I’m going to keep this short, squirt.” He leaned back in his chair. “You’ve missed regiment training a good three times this week, managed to burn down half the kitchen, and I think accidentally committed a war crime last month.”
“Wha-”
“You are to ask Pepper from the Air Force to accompany you down-”
“Pepper?” He almost shrieked, making the very patient general stop mid-sentence. “I can’t take her! She’s a Pegasus who almost always has a broken wing! I can’t take her with me! She’ll slow me down.” The general waited an extra second to make sure the recruit finished.
“You haven’t heard the mission yet.” The recruit blinked, moving his head back in a questioning gesture. “You two are going down- not to Ponyville, but down to the National Equestrian Archive and search for a pony named…” He glanced down to the letter. “Staples. Unicorn with a cream coat, orange mane, and a paper and paperclip Cutiemark.”
“Oh.” He let out a sigh. “That’s not so bad, then. Thank you, captain-”
“And if Staples doesn’t have a record.” He kept going. “You and Pepper are going to go down to Ponyville and pay Staples a visit, make sure he isn’t a Changeling.”
“But neither of us are Unicorns!” He objected. “How’ll we undisguise the Changeling?”
“Celestia bless it, Chloride! Do I have to spell everything out for you?” He asked, genuinely finding himself slightly annoyed. Chloride clamped his mouth shut, shaking his head furiously. The general took one deep breath, stabilizing himself. “Take a standard jail cart, throw some supplies in there to last you the journey, and take a Changeling Kit with you.”
There was a pause as Chloride seemingly chewed the air in thought.
“So… If we can’t find Paperclip’s record, we can’t take the train?”
The general face-hoofed.
“No. You can’t take the train. Since both you and Pepper skipped this week’s march, you’ll take the cart, and you’ll take the journey on hoof.”
Chloride chewed the air again, his eyes darting to the side in deep thought as he watched the setting sun.
“Can Pepper pull the cart?”
“She has a broken wing, Chloride.” He said, exasperated, uncovering his face. “That, and you’re an Earth-pony. Did you miss- not even basic training, did you miss pre-school, too?”
Chloride decided not to answer that, instead just offering a hasty salute and turning around to leave.
“Just- please take the letter.” The general hastily added. “You’re gonna forget who you’re looking for.”
Chloride frowned, turning around and hastily transferring the piece of parchement.
“This is dumb.”
The general frowned back.





Radius couldn’t remember the last time he had ran. It must’ve been years, really. Since he had moved to Ponyville, he didn’t really have an excuse to pick up the pace at anything more than leisurely. Everything in this small town was close together. The stalls, his work, his home. That being said, however, as Radius found himself trotting at a brisk trot in an attempt to outpace the setting sun, he couldn’t help but feel his joints rapidly weakening.
Although his eyes were focused on the ground, the textbook weighing heavily on his back, he couldn’t help but feel like that damned picture was burned into his brain. He could still see it. The white Changeling. White and pink, found down south, where as far as Radius knew, the only living creatures were bugs and a few Zebra tribes. What would Queen Chrysalis be doing down there?
Of course, the obvious answer was obvious. It was staring him right in the fact. There was a reason why Queen Chrysalis’s hive was called just that. A hive.For there to be her hive implies the existence of multiple hives. Of course, Radius had the notion that he might not be from Queen Chrysalis’s hive due to his orange coloration, but with a lack of evidence, he had swept that theory under the rug and forgotten about it.
But now, that white and pink Changeling told him one thing: Other hives had to exist. And there was an outstanding chance that he wasn’t ever a part of Queen Chrysalis’s hive.
It was comforting to know that not only did he not participate in the invasion, he wasn’t even cut from the same branch of Queen Chrysalis and her hive. But, it was unfortunately less comforting to know that all of the research about himself could be practically thrown out.
There was a good chance that nothing he had read could be applied to him. Perhaps other Changelings were actually mindless drones, just like the newspapers had said. Maybe because he was a part of this now mysterious orange hive, his being was gifted with the intelligence of a pony.
He was so deep in thought that he didn’t realize the heavy text book had begun it’s slide down his back, and it accidentally fell down, landing on the dirt with a thump. He finally stopped trotting, turning around, and looking at the now dusty tomb.
He wasn’t going to make it back before dark. That was just a fact. He decided to rest, and although he mentally wanted to get home as soon as possible, he physically relaxed at the respite of relief as he found a nearby tree and sat down next to it.
The forest path he had found himself on was thick with trees, just on the outside of the Everfree. Through the canopy of trees that covered the majority of the skyline, he could faintly see the swirling orange and purple lights of the setting sun. Whether it was a blunder on Princess Celestia’s part or whatever council set time and dates for the sun to rise and set, six was the time today. Which was incredibly early. Almost laughably early.
The sky, though, did give Radius a brief respite from his thoughts. It’s beautiful colors were mesmerizing to watch stretch further and further across the sky. Little stars pricked through the canvas, although it wasn’t quite dark enough to poke all the way through and shine brightly. No doubt, Princess Luna’s moon would pop over the horizon any moment now.
Radius let out one last big sigh, closing his eyes, and leaning his head far enough back that it made contact with the tree he rest his back on.
He was… ‘safe’ out here. This path was well out of the way, the only civilization this far out being the nearby cottage that belonged to a Pegasus, although his memories of the place were fuzzy at best and gone at worst.
In town, trotting was dangerous. Ponyville was a dangerous place. All it took was a Pegasus loosing control of a stunt, smashing into him at high speeds, and accidentally undisguising himself. An uncontrolled cart smacking him too hard, he would be outed. A dropped beam from a new construction, rambunctious fillies on their scooter, a misfired spell- all it took was a blunder and he would be done.
And unlike the last times he had undisguised in front of towns before, it was now dangerous to do so. No longer were ponies content with running him out of towns, the newspapers demanded his blood.
Out here was… safer was the word. Not safe, but safer then being out in the middle of the town square. The worst thing that could happen out here was an overly territorial squirrel.
He listened to the gushing wind with his eyes closed. The creaking of sticks, the brushing of leaves, and the howling.
It was really, really peaceful.
But alas, all good things must come to an end.
He caught it. Heard it.
It started off soft, and for a second, he didn’t really mentally registered that he was hearing anything out of the ordinary. But then, the wind picked up again, and for a second time, louder, her heard it.
His eyes creaked open, his brow furrowed, and he leaned forwards intently. His ears worked to twitch back and forth as he strained to hear. He could’ve sworn there was something being carried by the wind. A murmuring, perhaps? Another pony out this far?
The wind picked up once more, and his heart thoroughly dropped through the ground.
He heard crying. It had to be crying. It definitely had to be crying. It was coming from deeper, from the forest behind him, and away from the path he had defined as safer. His chest began to painfully tighten with fear as he looked deeper into the deep vicious black, and he made yet another startling observation.
It wasn’t just normal crying. It was crying coming from a filly.
He began to feel his head turn light and fuzzy as the situation began to dawn on him. There was a filly crying in the Everfree. To be fair, it wasn’t particularly deep into the Everfree, but it was still deeper than the path he walked on.
He was on a path that nopony ever really traveled, and he had only heard it when he took a moment to rest. Nopony else was ever going to hear her. He had accidentally taken the responsibility to figure out whatever was causing this filly grief.
This filly was in danger.
Visions popped up in his own. Visions of a filly being attacked- no, ripped apart by a beast. A Timberwolf, or an Ursa-Major, Cock-a-trice, or any other manner of creatures.
He was a Changeling, the bringer of darkness. His kind had killed countless ponies across history. He was forged in the pits of Tartarus, created as a predator to an uncontested prey species in a land without any natural enemies.
And he was being defeated by a clump of trees.
Radius quickly glanced to the textbook that had fallen off of his book. His own anatomy stared back at him. He took two deep consecutive breaths as he stared blindly straight ahead, closing his eyes once more.
“Aw, man.”
Then, he stood up, and began carefully trotting towards the source of the sound, being careful to dodge any particularly pointy plants.
Yet, as he disappeared deeper and deeper into the forest, a particular cyan Pegasus poked her head over a nearby cloud, watching as this Changeling dot far below began to traverse the forest. He looked like a bull in a china shop, barreling his way through the trees at an impressive speed.
The mare put a hoof on her chin, leaning forwards intently. She let out a deep sigh.
“Where ya goin’, Staples?” She whispered to herself, yawning. She spread out her wings and began lightly flapping them, the cloud just barely following the speck on the ground.