Perspectives

by dzamie

Day 1: Breakfast and a New Job

Today was a pretty average day. I got up, did a quick check of my hoard (nobody ever steals from it, but just in case...), and set out for breakfast. I was thinking maybe I'd get some chickens to eat; chickens were my favorite food, since they taste like everything. Luck seemed to be upon me, since I spotted a griffin flying around outside my cave. Unfortunately, I was still a bit tired at that point, so my claw struck only air, and the lion-eagle managed to escape my clutches. On the positive side, that's one more who won't likely be stealing my treasure anytime soon. Anyway, after my brief run-in with the griffin, I made my way down to a nearby animal farm. Fortune yet again shined in my favor, and I was met with the sight of at least two dozen chickens and nary a farmer in sight. I quickly snatched up ten or so of the hens, and made my way back to my cave. I set the chickens down for just a minute to heat up some water (boiled always seems tastier than roasted to me), and found that only two were left; the others had scattered into nooks of the cave where I'm too large to reach. Good thing dragons have (surprisingly, considering our size) rather slow metabolisms, since breakfast and lunch were chicken soup, mostly water, since I only had two chickens instead of a more hearty six or eight. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I took a nap, and caught some deer for dinner. The chickens hiding in the cave walls still taunt me with their infernal clucking noises and incessant head-bobbing. Moreover, I have not been successful in my attempts to catch and eat them.
Chickens are no longer my favorite food.

Oh, man, the craziest stuff happened today! So I was out for a mid-morning flight, exploring a new mountain, when all of a sudden a big, huge, blue dragon starts attacking me! Naturally, I escaped (did you expect anything less?), but I had to pull of my most epic dodging moves ever, I was rolling and weaving and all sorts of things! So anyway, I hauled tail to get back to my home (I live just outside of Cloudsdale, so there are so many female pegasi who fly by every day, totally awesome), only to learn that Cirrus Strider, my friend of two years, finally graduated from that mercenary school or whatever, after failing last year's final test. Not only that, but he had even landed himself an entry-level job at a pretty well-known company! Things are gonna be just great for him. As for me, well... it's a good thing that griffins are omnivorous, because I won't be able to buy food for much longer. I wonder if that dragon would be willing to teach me to hunt...
Nah, he'd probably try to eat me or something. That's what dragons always do in stories.

Journal Entry #1
I have decided to start a journal, and it shall serve two purposes: Firstly, and most importantly, it is to document the physiology, psychology, and sociology of a covert-ops changeling, since, if I were to be discovered, it is potentially vital to my safety, and more importantly, the Hive's, that any ponies going through my possessions are not misled by common opinionated paranoia, and that, through the combination of alternate biases, that of mine and that of the ponies', a neutral understanding may come to light. The secondary purpose, is of course to act as a notebook inside which I can record my thoughts on my experiences in this town. Now then, for the subject matter:
Most of the information ponies have about changelings appears to have been derived from their sole encounter with the changeling Queen, Chrysalis. However, her hive is a comparatively new one, and one to which I do not belong. However, there are some similarities between her hive and the Hive of my Queen. The most outstanding commonalities are in physical appearance; all changelings, have a black “fur” which is dense enough to rival the apparent effectiveness of pony-made thick-cloth armor. In addition, the drones naturally possess solid blue eyes, although some decide to change their eye color to their whim, and all changelings can assume a disguise, which is stronger in detection avoidance than illusions, but weaker than a legitimate magical shapeshift. Most changelings, excluding the occasional converted pony changeling (hereafter in this journal referred to as “Converts”) have thin, semitransparent wings, which can generate enough lift to support up to triple the weight of a changeling drone with adequate physical training. Also, changelings have “holes” in their legs. This is a side-effect of our ability to disguise ourselves, as on parts of the body, the same power source used to generate the iconic visual changes passively “disguises” areas on our extremities as the view behind us. The size and frequency of these “holes” varies directly with how much disguise training each changeling has received, and inversely with how frequently a changeling is disguised. For example, I have had slightly above-average training to enable me to perform more actions while disguised, but I also remain changed for much of my waking hours. Hence, the “holes” on my legs are rather small compared to a changeling who simply remains hidden throughout the day and ventures out unchanged by night.
Okay, lesson over. I'll write of misconceptions tomorrow, but for now, I'm going to write about what happened today. As per usual, my day started with waking up, getting some water, and reading the morning paper. Nothing outstanding there; the most unique thing was some pegasus speculation about that aurora a few nights ago. After checking up on the local news, I decided to see if anybody in my Hive was going through something interesting, and checked the... I suppose I'll call it a hivemind here; I've never needed a word for it before. Anyway, one of the changelings who pretends to be a pegasus apparently overheard a real pegasus talking about joining a mercenary's (really just hired help, but everyone calls us mercenaries) guild once he graduates. The reason this caught my attention is because I happen to work (no changeling-pretending here, I've got to put effort into the job) at one of those. So I assumed my disguise of a forest-green unicorn with a messy orange mane, and head off to see if any interesting bounties had been put up, especially for known changelings, since I tend to just get them to leave rather than killing them. Nothing really interesting this morning, unfortunately, but I can sustain myself from my co-workers' positive emotions generated from just acting as a likeable pony. Mildly noticeable, however, was a new pegasus-pony working there, a blue-and-yellow, bright-eyed guy named Cirrus Strider. I sent a confirmation over to the changeling who had broadcast the rumor, with some information about where Cirrus works in case he wanted to find him again. After alternating between doing a few short tasks for ponies and just shooting the breeze with my colleagues, I was just about to punch out and call it a day when a farm pony ran in, placing a decent bounty for the return of his chickens. Turns out a dragon stole them, which is why he's offering so much. I volunteered to do it tomorrow, and the newbie du jour decided that he wanted to fight a dragon, so he offered to go with me. He doesn't seem that experienced, and I think that his cockiness will get the better of him tomorrow. Oh well, I'll scribe the results of the task tomorrow.

so toda i went owt to colect egs from the chikens and chek on the gardin wen sudenly a dragon jus swuped down and stol a bunch of my chikens. i was absolutle infyureatd. my chikens ar my mane sors of bits so after doing my dali tasks i went to the mersinaris gild to se if I cud get a groop to get my chikens bak. a unikorn and a pegusis sed thed do it tomoro so thats gud. i hop thay suxed becuz thoz chikens ar vitl to mi livlehud.